PENTECOST

A solemn festival of the Jews; -- so called because celebrated on the fiftieth day (seven weeks) after the second day of the Passover (which fell on the sixteenth of the Jewish month Nisan); -- hence called, also, the Feast of Weeks. At this festival an offering of the first fruits of the harvest was made. By the Jews it was generally regarded as commemorative of the gift of the law on the fiftieth day after the departure from Egypt. A festival of the Roman Catholic and other churches in commemoration of the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles; which occurred on the day of Pentecost; -- called also Whitsunday. Shak.

Synonym of Shavuot (“a Jewish harvest festival which falls on the sixth day of Sivan in the spring, fifty days after the second day of the Passover when the omer (“sheaf of barley”) is offered; a ceremony held on that day to commemorate the giving of the Torah (“first five books of the Hebrew scriptures”) to Moses and the Israelites on Mount Sinai”). | A festival which falls on the seventh Sunday after Easter which commemorates the event described in Acts 2 of the Bible when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles during the Jewish festival of Pentecost (proper noun sense 1), conferring on them the miraculous ability to explain the gospel in languages they did not know; also, the Sunday on which the festival is celebrated. | In full day of Pentecost or Pentecost day: the day on which the event commemorated by the festival (proper noun sense 2) occurred; also, the event itself. | Synonym of Whitsuntide (“the week beginning on Whitsunday; also, the weekend which includes Whitsunday”). | The gift of the Holy Spirit to a Christian; also, the occurrence of this. | A surname.