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Glite Dictionary
Lammas Day

Lammas Day

9.8
A festival on 1 August that marks the start of the harvest and was once a Christian celebration
  • noun
  • /ˈlæməs deɪ/
  • Archaic
translation icon : Día de Lammas
  • The village held a big celebration on Lammas Day to give thanks for the harvest.

Examples

  • On Lammas Day, many farmers in England would bring their first fruits to church.

  • Historically, Lammas Day marked the beginning of the wheat harvest in Scotland.

  • Demon Revels, St. James Day, Lammas Day, August 3

    Academic text (1997)

Synonyms

Lammas
vsLammas Day
  • Archaic
9.9

A festival on August 1 that marks the start of the harvest

is a historic Christian harvest observance linked to a saint and local practice

Surface Forms

Lammas Day singular
Lammas Days plural

Morphology

Lammas + day

The phrase is a straightforward calendrical composition: 'Lammas' (a harvest celebration on August 1) + 'day' yields 'the day of the Lammas celebration'. This follows a common festival-name + day pattern found cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent meanings can readily derive the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

The noun Lammas Day may come from old words meaning loaf and mass, because people used to bring the first bread of the harvest to church on 1 August. That's why the day became a festival to mark the start of the harvest.