halloween
n. uncountablen. a holiday on October 31st when people dress in costumes and children go to houses to ask for candy. It is a time for spooky stories, pumpkins, and fun parties.
n. a holiday observed on the evening of October 31, originating from ancient Celtic harvest festivals and now characterised by costume parties and trick-or-treating. When capitalised, it refers to the specific calendar event.
The children are excited to wear their costumes for Halloween.
Many families carve faces into pumpkins and place candles inside them to decorate their porches for Halloween.
While modern Halloween is largely a commercial and secular event, its roots lie in the ancient festival of Samhain, which marked the transition from the harvest to the dark of winter.
A Scottish shortening of Allhalloweven, from Allhallowmas—the obsolete earlier name of All Saints' Day—compounded with even, an archaic or poetic variant of eve; compare een.
The American pronunciation with /ɑ/ compares to Southern English traditional dialect pronunciations of fallow /ˈfɒ.lə/ and tallow /ˈtɒ.lə/.
Usually capitalised as a proper noun; functions as an uncountable noun when referring to the holiday itself.
- Nounhalloween
- Adjectivehallowed