The Collaborative International Dictionary
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.]
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.
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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.
A painted or colored egg used as a present at Easter.
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.
Wiktionary
WordNet
Usage examples of "pasque".
This being May, the range cows they kept passing were grazing lavender pasque flowers and white sand-lilies.
Prince La Fireez went in a mantle of black sendaline sprinkled everywhere with spangles of gold, and the tunic beneath it of rich figured silk dyed deep purple of the Pasque flower.
Brandoch Daha rode from the west, the day the Pasque flowers first opened on the bluffs below Erngate End and primroses made sweet the birch-forests in Gashterndale.
The third law applied to insults, batteries, wounds, blows, torts, effusion of blood, and similar injuries inflicted at the season of the Nativity, the week of Pasque, and at Pentecost.
Gerard, however, expressly informs us that he himself was 'moved to name' this the Pasque Flower, or Easter Flower, because of the time of its appearance, it being in bloom from April to June.
Look at 'im, that'n would sooner be boiled in the soup than sing wid yore pretty Pasque sittin' next to 'im!
The sky was the colour of pasque flowers, blue fading into violet, and southern swallows soared high above Nancy's head.