movable feast
Noun: 1. A religious holiday whose date is not fixed to a specific day of the calendar year but changes annually based on a lunar or ecclesiastical calculation. This term most commonly refers to Christian holidays like Easter and its related observances (e.g., Pentecost, Ash Wednesday), whose dates are determined by complex formulas involving the spring equinox and lunar cycles.
The term is used to describe religious observances with variable dates, contrasting them with "fixed feasts" which always occur on the same calendar date (e.g., Christmas on December 25th). - Easter is the most well-known movable feast in the Christian calendar. - The date of the movable feast of Pentecost depends entirely on when Easter falls. - Because it's a movable feast, the school holiday schedule changes every year.
- Figurative/Literary Use: The phrase can be used metaphorically to describe any enjoyable event or activity that occurs at irregular or unpredictable times.
- Our team lunches are a movable feast, happening whenever our schedules align.
- Moveable feast: An alternative, less common spelling. The meaning is identical.
- Fixed feast (n): A religious holiday that always occurs on the same calendar date.
- Liturgical calendar (n): The cycle of seasons and holy days observed in a Christian church.
- Variable feast
- Shifting holiday
- A movable feast: This idiom directly stems from the religious term and is used in its figurative sense.
- In our family, Thanksgiving is a movable feast; we celebrate on whatever weekend everyone can gather.
- a religious holiday that falls on different dates in different years