festal

English

Etymology

From Middle French festal, from Latin festum (“feast”).

Adjective

festal (comparative more festal, superlative most festal)

1. festive, relating to a festival or feast
   • 1905, O. Henry, Telemachus, Friend

     His wife had decorated it all up with hollyhocks and poison ivy, and it looked real festal and bowery.

   • 1952, Norman Lewis, Golden Earth:

     Amidst this fetor the Burmese masses live their festal and contemplative existences.

   • 2010 January, David Brakke, “A New Fragment of Athanasius’s Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter: Heresy, Apocrypha, and the Canon” in the Harvard Theological Review, volume CIII, № 1, page 47:

     Athanasius of Alexandria’s thirty-ninth Festal Letter remains one of the most significant documents in the history of the Christian Bible. Athanasius wrote the letter, which contains the first extant list of precisely the twenty-seven books of the current New Testament canon, in 367 C.E., during the final decade of his life.

Synonyms

• merry

Derived terms

• festally

Anagrams

• E flats, E-flats, alfets, atself, e flats, e-flats