holyday

holyday (plural holydays)

1. Alternative form of holiday used to emphasize holiness.
   • 1948 December 19, George H. Sallaway, “Coming—‘Clausmas Day’”, in Our Sunday Visitor, Omaha Archdiocesan True Voice edition, volume XXXVII, number 34, Omaha, Neb., →OCLC, Religious section, page 9, column 3:

     This is the year to reverse the process of time and once again make the holiday a holyday; our Clausmas, a Christmas.

   • 1976 December 12, Chuck Thomas, “Behold the Bicentennial Bah! Humbug! Award”, in Ventura County Star-Free Press, 102nd year, number 37, Ventura, Calif., →ISSN, →OCLC, page C-10, column 5:

     You’ve heard the pitch (you can hardly escape it): We’ve turned a Christian holyday into a Roman holiday […]

   • 2004 April 17, John, “A New Look At Colissians^[sic] 2:14-17”, in alt.religion.christian.adventist‎^[1] (Usenet), archived from the original on 19 December 2025:

     This brings up the question raised by these scholars when they say "holyday" is the same as "sabbaths". So why would Paul repeat himself there? […] Most Jewish holydays were a number of days or weeks. Now ONE of THOSE days WAS a sabbath. […] So we see then, there are different sabbath days. Some included in the feasts and holy convocations. Does this mean THE OTHER DAYS weren't "HOLYDAYS"?

2. Obsolete form of holiday.
   • 1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 55:

     Having obtained the loan of a horse one holyday, he rode into a "faire forest," where, overcome by the heat, he lay down under the shade of a tree and meditated on his wretched state.

   • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Romance and Reality. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, pages 261–262:

     […] they were soon on the beautiful common leading to Roehampton, where villas, which seem, like Beatrice's idea of King Pedro for a husband, made only for holydays […]

holyday

1. alternative form of halyday