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Passover

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: pass over

English

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WOTD – 1 April 2026
An 1881 engraving depicting God’s destroying angel passing over the home of a Jewish family eating a Passover meal (sense 1) of a sacrificed lamb, upon seeing the door frame smeared with the lamb’s blood. In the absence of this sign, the angel killed every firstborn person or animal in each household. The event, the tenth Plague of Egypt, is recorded in Exodus 11–12 of the Bible.

Etymology

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Deverbal from pass over as a calque of Hebrew פֶּסַח (pésakh, “to pass over”) (see sense 1),[1] coined by the English Biblical scholar and linguist William Tyndale (c. 1494 – 1536), in his 1530 translation of Exodus 12 of the Bible, the first in modern English: see the quotation. Displaced native Old English færeld.

Pronunciation

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Proper noun

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Passover (plural Passovers) (also attributive)

  2. (biblical, Judaism) 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 or Nisan 14), during which the firstborn sons of the Israelites were passed over by God 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 yearly Sabbaths).
    • 1530 January 27 (Gregorian calendar), W[illiam] T[yndale], transl., [The Pentateuch] (Tyndale Bible), Malborow [Marburg], Hesse: […] Hans Luft [actually Antwerp: Johan Hoochstraten], →OCLC, Exodus xij:[7, 12–13], folio [xix], verso:
      And they ſhall take of the bloud ãd ſtrike it on the .ij. ſyde poſtes ãd on the vpper dor poſt of the houſes, whereĩ they eate hĩ. […] [I]t is the Lordes paſſeouer, for I will go aboute ĩ the lãde of Egipte this ſame nyghte, ãd will ſmyte all the firſtborne in the lande of Egipte: both of mã ãd beeſt, ãd apõ al the goddes off Egipte will I the Lorde do execution. And the bloude ſhall be vnto you a tokẽ vppon the houſes where in ye are, for whẽ I ſe the bloude, I will paſſe ouer you, ãd the plage ſhall not be vppõ you to deſtroye you, when I ſmyte the londe off Egipte.
      And they shall take of the blood [of the slaughtered lamb] and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they eat him. […] [I]t is the Lord's passover, for I will go about in the land of Egypt this same night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt: both of man and beast, and upon all the gods of Egypt will I the Lord do execution. And the blood shall be unto you a token upon the houses wherein ye are, for when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Leviticus 23:4–6, signature M, recto, column 2:
      Theſe are the feaſtes of the Lord, euen holy conuocations, which ye ſhall proclaime in their ſeaſons. In the fourteenth day of the firſt moneth at euen, is the Lords Paſſeouer. And on the fifteenth day of the ſame moneth, is the feaſt of vnleauened bread vnto the Lord: ſeuen dayes ye muſt eate vnleauened bread.
    • 1740, John Wesley, Charles Wesley, “[The Life of Faith, Exemplified in the Eleventh Chapter of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews.] Verses XXIII, XXIV, XXV, XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII.”, in Hymns and Sacred Poems, Bristol: […] William Strahan; and sold by James Hutton, […]; and at the Foundery […], →OCLC, part I, verse X, page 17:
      By Faith he [Moses] ſlevv the Typick Lamb, / And kept the Paſſover of God: / He knevv from VVhom its Virtue came, / The Saving Povver of ſprinkled Blood.
  3. (by extension)
    1. (Christianity)
      1. Synonym of Last Supper (“the meal that Jesus Christ ate with his disciples on the night before his death”).
      2. (figurative) Synonym of Paschal Lamb (“Jesus Christ symbolized as a sacrifice for the sins of humankind”).
    2. (Judaism)
      1. The seven-day (in 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: (from Hebrew) Feast of Matsot, Feast of Matzot; (from Hebrew) Festival of Matsot, Festival of Matzot, Festival of Unleavened Bread
      2. Synonym of Paschal Lamb (“the lamb traditionally eaten during Pesach”); also, the meal at which this lamb is eaten.
        • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 22:7–8, signature [H6], verso, column 1:
          Then came the day of vnleauened bread, when the Paſſeouer muſt be killed. And he [Jesus] ſent Peter and John, ſaying, Goe and prepare vs the Paſſeouer, that we may eate.
        • 1633, Jos[eph Hall], “[A Paraphrase vpon the Hard Texts of the Old Testament.] John. Chapter XVIII.”, in A Plaine and Familiar Explication (by Way of Paraphrase) of All the Hard Texts of the Whole Divine Scripture of the Old and New Testament, London: […] Miles Flesher, for Nath[aniel] Butter […], →OCLC, page 134:
          Then led they Jeſus from Caiaphas, unto the houſe of Pilate; and it vvas early, even before day, and they themſelves vvent not into the houſe of that heathen governour, leſt they ſhould be defiled by going in thither; as being carefull to keepe themſelves from all legall pollution, that they might bee capable of eating the Paſſover.
          A paraphrase of John 18:28.
        • 1870 April 26, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “[Poems.] Ave.”, in Poems, London: F[rederick] S[tartridge] Ellis, […], →OCLC, stanza 3, page 43:
          And through His [Jesus'] boyhood, year by year / Eating with Him the Passover, / Didst thou [Mary] discern confusedly / That holier sacrament, when He, / The bitter cup about to quaff, / Should break the bread and eat thereof?— […]
      3. (obsolete) A lamb which was sacrificed during the original Passover (sense 1).
  4. (figurative) A major festival or observance.
    • 1726, John Ayliffe, “Of Easter, and the Celebration thereof”, in Parergon Juris Canonici Anglicani: Or, A Commentary, by Way of Supplement to the Canons and Constitutions of the Church of England. […], London: […] D. Leach, and sold by John Walthoe […], →OCLC, page 236:
      And thus the Lords Paſſover, vvhich vve commonly call Eaſter, vvas order'd by the Canon-Lavv to be celebrated every Year on a Sunday, othervviſe ſtiled the Lord's-Day; becauſe our Lord on that Day of the VVeek, roſe from the Dead, and appear'd among his Diſciples: […] [T]he Angel of the Lord appear'd unto Hermes […] in the Habit of a Shepherd, and declar'd to him, by vvay of Command, that all Perſons vvere to celebrate the Lord's Paſſover on the Lord's-Day; and this Meſſage, or Order, he communicated to the ſaid Pope [Pius I].
    • 1775, James Adair, “Argument VI. They Count Time after the Manner of the Hebrews.”, in The History of the American Indians; particularly those Nations Adjoining to the Missisippi, East and West Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina, and Virginia: […], London: […] Edward and Charles Dilly, […], →OCLC, pages 76–77:
      And by the firſt name [אביב (Avív)], the Indians, as an explicative, term their paſſover, vvhich the trading people call the green-corn dance.

Alternative forms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ “Passover, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2026; “Passover, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

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Anagrams

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