moveable feast
Noun: A religious holiday or festival whose date is not fixed to a specific day of the calendar year but changes annually, typically based on a lunar calendar or a calculation involving the spring equinox.
This term is used to describe religious observances that shift dates from year to year. It is a formal term, often found in religious, historical, or cultural contexts. - Easter is a well-known moveable feast in the Christian calendar. - The timing of Ramadan, a moveable feast for Muslims, advances by about ten days each Gregorian year.
- Figurative Use: In literary contexts, the phrase can be used metaphorically to describe any event or occasion that is not fixed in time or is subject to change.
- Our annual reunion has become a moveable feast, scheduled based on everyone's availability.
- Movable Feast: This is an equally common and accepted spelling variant. There is no difference in meaning.
- "Movable feast" is listed as the primary spelling in some dictionaries.
- Floating holiday: A less common secular synonym, though it can also refer to non-religious holidays.
- Variable-date festival: A descriptive synonym.
The term specifically refers to holidays determined by religious calendars (like the Islamic lunar calendar or the Christian calculation for Easter). It is not generally used for secular holidays with fixed dates (like Christmas on December 25th in many traditions) or for secular holidays that change for administrative convenience (like a "bank holiday Monday"). The core concept is the annual variability based on a specific, often ancient, formula or celestial event.
- a religious holiday that falls on different dates in different years