Passover

Meaning

1. The one-day Biblical feast or festival (not a holy day) that begins at twilight at the beginning of the fourteenth day of the first month (Abib 14 / Nisan 14), during which the first-born sons of the Israelites were passed over while those of the Egyptians were killed; this feast day is then immediately followed by the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread (Nisan 15 to 21; the first and seventh days are holy days or annual or yearly Sabbaths).
2. The seven-day (Reform Judaism) or eight-day (Orthodox and Conservative Judaism) Jewish festival of Pesach (also called the Feast of Unleavened Bread (מַצּוֹת (matsót)), commemorating the biblical story of the Exodus.

Synonyms

Pesach

Easter

Pesah

Pasch

Feast of the Unleavened Bread

Pesakh

Pascha

Eastertide

Translations

Pasqua ebraica

Pâque

Passah

Passahfest

Pessa’h

Pâques

Pessach

Páscoa

Pascha

Pessach

Ostern

Pasqua

Etymology

Deverbal from pass over. Coined by William Tyndale (c. 1494–1536), the first translator of the Bible into modern English, as a calque of Hebrew פֶּסַח (pésakh).