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March 17

March 17

5 1.0
The date when people celebrate Saint Patrick's Day, an Irish holiday
  • noun
translation icon : 17 de marzo
  • On March 17, Irish communities around the world come together to honor their patron saint.
  • March 17, 2019
  • Sunday, March 17
  • March 17 deadline

Examples

  • Many people wear green on March 17 to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.

  • Festivities for March 17 include parades and traditional Irish music.

  • To celebrate the event, March 17, he picked Jeanette up at the library and drove to the airport.

    Fiction book (1993)
  • On Saturday, March 17, 2012, a fire started in a home on Poplar Street in Northern Liberties.

    Blog text (23)
  • Monday, March 17, 2008

    Blog text (4)
  • Thursday, March 17, 1960

    Fiction book (1993)
  • March 17, 1776.

  • Tampere, March 17, 1896

    Fiction book (1992)
  • Nicaragua brought that additional issue to the ICJ in 2013, and on March 17, 2016, the Court found that it had jurisdiction to delimit the outer shelf.

    Academic text (2018)
  • On March 17, 1554, Princess Elizabeth, with six attendants, is taken on a barge to the dreaded Tower of London, where prisoners have often been killed.

    Fiction book (1999)

Synonyms

Saint Patrick's Day
vsMarch 17
4 2.9

A holiday on March 17 when people celebrate Saint Patrick and Irish culture

is the calendar date when that holiday takes place
St Patrick's Day
vsMarch 17
2.0

A public holiday on 17 March when people celebrate Irish culture by wearing green and joining parades

is the calendar date when that holiday is observed
St Patty's Day
vsMarch 17
  • Informal
3.7

A holiday on March 17 that celebrates Irish people and culture

is the calendar date rather than the informal holiday name

Surface Forms

March 17 singular

Morphology

March + seventeen

The item is a straightforward composition of month + numeral: a B1 learner who knows 'March' and 'seventeen' will immediately interpret this as the 17th day of March (a calendar date), which follows a common cross-linguistic pattern. The specific cultural association with St. Patrick's Day is encyclopedic knowledge beyond the words themselves, but the basic date meaning is transparent.

Etymology

March 17 is the date people remember St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, because it is thought to be the day he died long ago. That's why March 17 now means St. Patrick's Day, a day of parades, wearing green, and celebrating Irish culture.