xmas
noun · verb
Form of xma , plural of xma.
Simple meaning
A festival or holiday commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ and incorporating different Christian, pre-Christian, pagan, and secular customs.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ehksehmuhzIPA pronunciation (US)
ɛksɛməz
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
informal
A festival or holiday commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ and incorporating various Christian, pre-Christian, pagan, and secular customs, which in Western Christianity is celebrated on December 25 (Christmas Day) in most places.
informal
A Christian holiday celebrating the birth of Christ; a quarter day in England, Wales, and Ireland
verb
informal
To decorate (a place) with Christmas ("sprigs of holly and other evergreen plants used as Christmas decorations, or any Christmas decorations").
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A festival or holiday commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ and incorporating various Christian, pre-Christian, pagan, and secular customs, which in Western Christianity is celebrated on December 25 (Christmas Day) in most places.
Used this way, xmas is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in everyday conversation and social media or informal writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Casual
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Playful
- Usage feel
- Casual and conversational
Where it naturally appears
- Everyday conversation
- Social media/informal 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.