holidays
noun · verb
Form of holiday , plural of holiday.
Simple meaning
A day on which a festival, religious event, or national celebration is traditionally observed.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
hahluhdayzSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈhɑlədeɪz
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
plural of holiday
A day on which a festival, religious event, or national celebration is traditionally observed.
plural of holiday
A day declared free from work by the state or government.
plural of holidaychiefly UKAustralia
A period of one or more days taken off work for leisure and often travel; often plural.
plural of holidaychiefly UKAustralia
A period during which pupils do not attend their school; often plural; rarely used for students at university (usually: vacation).
verb
third-person singular of holiday
To take a period of time away from work or study.
third-person singular of holiday
To spend a period of time in recreational travel.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A day on which a festival, religious event, or national celebration is traditionally observed.
Used this way, holidays is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly warm, approving pull. This is a religious use: it carries the weight of tradition and ceremony.
- Emotional tone
- Positive
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Positive and appreciative
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Religion/spirituality
- Historical writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.