Pentecost
pen·te·cost
noun
Origin
From Middle English Pentecoste (“feast of the descent of the Holy Spirit, Pentecost; season of Pentecost, Whitsuntide; Jewish festival celebrating giving of the law to Moses”), from Old English Pentecosten, also influenced by Anglo-Norman pentecoste, Middle French pentecoste, and Old French pentecoste (“Christian feast of Pentecost; Jewish festival of Pentecost”) (modern French Pentecôte). Both the Old English and Old French words are derived from Ecclesiastical Latin Pentēcostē (“Christian feast of Pentecost; Jewish festival of Pentecost”), from Koine Greek πεντηκοστή (pentēkostḗ, “Christian feast of Pentecost; Jewish festival of Pentecost”), from Ancient Greek πεντηκοστή (pentēkostḗ, “fiftieth”), a noun use of the feminine form of πεντηκοστὸς (pentēkostòs, “fiftieth”, adjective), short for πεντηκοστὸς ἡμέρα (pentēkostòs hēméra, “fiftieth day”) (referring to the Jewish festival falling on the fiftieth day after the second day of the Passover), used in the Bible to translate Hebrew שָׁבוּעוֹת (shāvū'ót, “weeks”). Πεντηκοστὸς (Pentēkostòs) is derived from Proto-Hellenic *penkʷēkontstós, from *pénkʷe (“five”) (from Proto-Indo-European *pénkʷe (“five; hand”)) + *-kontstós (suffix f...
Phrases
- Christian Pentecost
- Eastern Orthodox Pentecost
- Jewish Pentecost
- Pentecost Island
- Pentecost Monday
- Pentecost Sunday
- Pentecost Tuesday
Related words
Broader terms
Parts
WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.