Movable Feast (Noun)
Meaning
A religious holiday that falls on different dates in different years.
Classification
Nouns denoting time and temporal relations.
Examples
- Easter is a movable feast that can occur as early as March 22 or as late as April 25 in the Western Christian calendar.
- The date of the Hindu festival of Holi varies each year, making it a movable feast that is often celebrated in either February or March.
- In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Christmas is a fixed date, but the Epiphany is a movable feast that can occur on any Sunday between January 2 and February 7.
- The Jewish holiday of Passover is a movable feast that usually falls in March or April in the Gregorian calendar.
- The Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr is a movable feast that is celebrated on the first day of the month of Shawwal in the Islamic calendar.