What is "easter"

Movable \Mov"a*ble\, a. [Cf. OF. movable. See Move.]

1. Capable of being moved, lifted, carried, drawn, turned, or conveyed, or in any way made to change place or posture; susceptible of motion; not fixed or stationary; as, a movable steam engine. [Also spelled moveable.]

   Syn: transferable, transferrable, transportable.

2. Changing from one time to another; as, movable feasts, i. e., church festivals, the date of which varies from year to year.

   Movable letter (Heb. Gram.), a letter that is pronounced, as opposed to one that is quiescent.

   Movable feast (Ecclesiastical), a holy day that changes date, depending on the lunar cycle. An example of such a day is Easter.

Easter \East"er\, v. i. (Naut.) To veer to the east; -- said of the wind.
--Russell.

Easter \Eas"ter\ ([=e]s"t[~e]r), n. [AS. e['a]ster, e['a]stran, paschal feast, Easter; akin to G. ostern; fr. AS. E['a]stre, a goddess of light or spring, in honor of whom a festival was celebrated in April; whence this month was called in AS. E['a]sterm[=o]na[eth]. From the root of E. east. See East.]

1. An annual church festival commemorating Christ's resurrection, and occurring on Sunday, the second day after Good Friday. It corresponds to the pascha or passover of the Jews, and most nations still give it this name under the various forms of pascha, pasque, p[^a]que, or pask.

2. The day on which the festival is observed; Easter day. Note: Easter is used either adjectively or as the first element of a compound; as, Easter day or Easter-day, Easter Sunday, Easter week, Easter gifts, Easter eggs. Sundays by thee more glorious break, An Easter day in every week. --Keble. Note: Easter day, on which the rest of the movable feasts depend, is always the first Sunday after the fourteenth day of the calendar moon which (fourteenth day) falls on, or next after, the 21st of March, according to the rules laid down for the construction of the calendar; so that if the fourteenth day happen on a Sunday, Easter day is the Sunday after. --Eng. Cyc. Easter dues (Ch. of Eng.), money due to the clergy at Easter, formerly paid in communication of the tithe for personal labor and subject to exaction. For Easter dues, Easter offerings, voluntary gifts, have been substituted. Easter egg.

   1. A painted or colored egg used as a present at Easter.

   2. An imitation of an egg, in sugar or some fine material, sometimes made to serve as a box for jewelry or the like, used as an Easter present.

Old English Easterdæg, from Eastre (Northumbrian Eostre), from Proto-Germanic *austron-, "dawn," also the name of a goddess of fertility and spring, perhaps originally of sunrise, whose feast was celebrated at the spring equinox, from *aust- "east, toward the sunrise" (compare east), from PIE *aus- (1) "to shine" (especially of the dawn); see aurora.\n

\nBede says Anglo-Saxon Christians adopted her name and many of the celebratory practices for their Mass of Christ's resurrection. Almost all neighboring languages use a variant of Latin Pascha to name this holiday (see paschal). Easter egg attested by 1825, earlier pace egg (1610s). Easter bunny attested by 1904 in children's lessons; Easter rabbit is by 1888; the paganish customs of Easter seem to have grown popular c. 1900; before that they were limited to German immigrants.\n\nIf the children have no garden, they make nests in the wood-shed, barn, or house. They gather colored flowers for the rabbit to eat, that it may lay colored eggs. If there be a garden, the eggs are hidden singly in the green grass, box-wood, or elsewhere. On Easter Sunday morning they whistle for the rabbit, and the children imagine that they see him jump the fence. After church, on Easter Sunday morning, they hunt the eggs, and in the afternoon the boys go out in the meadows and crack eggs or play with them like marbles. Or sometimes children are invited to a neighbor's to hunt eggs.

[Phebe Earle Gibbons, "Pennsylvania Dutch," Philadelphia 1882]

a. (context obsolete English) eastern.

Easter is the third studio album by the Patti Smith Group, released in March 1978 on Arista Records (see 1978 in music). Produced by Jimmy Iovine, it is regarded as the group's commercial breakthrough, owing to the success of the single, " Because the Night" (co-written by Bruce Springsteen and Smith), which reached #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #5 in the UK.

Easter is a Christian and cultural spring festival.

Easter may also refer to:

• Easter customs, cultural traditions and practices that take place during the above festival
• Eastertide, a fifty-day season in some Christian traditions
• Ēostre, the pagan equinox (hence, "East") festival from which the Christian festival takes its name in English and in other Germanic languages
• (Archaic) Passover the Jewish Passover had been called "Easter", e.g., in in the KJV

Easter is the second album by These Arms Are Snakes. It was released on October 10, 2006 on Jade Tree Records.

Easter is a symbolic religious drama from 1901 by Swedish playwright August Strindberg.

The play was produced by the Stockholm ensemble Intima Teatern, which also toured other Scandinavian countries, including performances of Påsk in Kristiania. It was the first of Strindberg's plays that was staged in Bergen, premiering at Den Nationale Scene in September 1909.

A revival set in Harlem and performed with an African American cast was well received. That production closed on Easter Sunday, 2013.

Easter is an independent film based on the play by the same name.

Easter, also called Pascha or Resurrection Sunday, is a festival and holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, described in the New Testament as having occurred on the third day of his burial after his crucifixion by Romans at Calvary 30 AD. It is the culmination of the Passion of Christ, preceded by Lent (or Great Lent), a forty-day period of fasting, prayer, and penance.

The week before Easter is called Holy Week, and it contains the days of the Easter Triduum, including Maundy Thursday, commemorating the Maundy and Last Supper, as well as Good Friday, commemorating the crucifixion and death of Jesus. In western Christianity, Eastertide, the Easter Season, begins on Easter Sunday and lasts seven weeks, ending with the coming of the fiftieth day, Pentecost Sunday. In Orthodoxy, the season of Pascha begins on Pascha and ends with the coming of the fortieth day, the Feast of the Ascension.

Easter and the holidays that are related to it are moveable feasts which do not fall on a fixed date in the Gregorian or Julian calendars which follow only the cycle of the sun; rather, its date is determined on a lunisolar calendar similar to the Hebrew calendar. The First Council of Nicaea (325) established two rules, independence of the Jewish calendar and worldwide uniformity, which were the only rules for Easter explicitly laid down by the council. No details for the computation were specified; these were worked out in practice, a process that took centuries and generated a number of controversies. It has come to be the first Sunday after the ecclesiastical full moon that occurs on or soonest after 21 March, but calculations vary in East and West.

Easter is linked to the Jewish Passover by much of its symbolism, as well as by its position in the calendar. In many languages, the words for "Easter" and "Passover" are identical or very similar. Easter customs vary across the Christian world, and include sunrise services, exclaiming the Paschal greeting, clipping the church, and decorating Easter eggs (symbols of the empty tomb). The Easter lily, a symbol of the resurrection, traditionally decorates the chancel area of churches on this day and for the rest of Eastertide. Additional customs that have become associated with Easter and are observed by both Christians and some non-Christians include egg hunting, the Easter Bunny, and Easter parades. There are also various traditional Easter foods that vary regionally.

Easter is a song from English neo-progressive rock band Marillion's 1989 album Seasons End, which became a UK Top 40 hit when issued as a single in 1990. Allmusic describe the song as "heartfelt" with an "imaginative electric-acoustic arrangement". As with many Marillion songs, the album version features an extended guitar solo by Steve Rothery, which has become a fan-favourite, although it is heavily edited for the single version. The song was written by singer Steve Hogarth before he joined the band in 1989 and was inspired by The Troubles in Northern Ireland. The title is in reference to Easter 1916 by William Butler Yeats. Portions of the video were filmed on the Giants Causeway.

Easter is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

• David Easter (born 1959), English actor
• Graham Easter (born 1969), English footballer
• Jack Easter (1907–1979), Australian politician
• Jamal Easter (born 1987), Welsh Association Football player
• Jeff & Sheri Easter, Southern Gospel duo
• Jermaine Easter (born 1982), Welsh Association Football player
• Luke Easter (baseball) (1915–1979), professional baseball player in Major League Baseball and the Negro leagues
• Luke Easter (musician), singer and songwriter with the Christian metal band Tourniquet
• Mark Easter (born 1982), rugby union player born in Swaziland
• Melanie Easter (born 1972), British paralympic swimmer and cyclist
• Mitch Easter, musician and producer
• Nick Easter (born 1978), English rugby union player
• Paul Easter (born 1963), Scottish freestyle swimmer
• Richard Easter, British scriptwriter
• Wayne Easter (born 1949), Canadian politician