Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origins 4. Today the word origin we're going to do is 'Halloween' Now which is coming up soon. So it will be very suitable for that time. All right. Let's take a look at the note here. The origin of the word Halloween comes from Scotland. In Scottish all Hallow E'en meant holy Eve. Yeah. So hallow really meant holy. The eve meant either like evening or eve. We know even today in English. eve always means the day before. Just like we say New Year's Eve and we say Christmas Eve. It's always the day before. So all Hallow e'en meant Holy Eve. Let's continue this of course was the evening before the celebration of All Saints Day. It's kind of ironic in a way. Because way back in about a thousand years ago , All Saints Day was the more important holiday. And was celebrated a lot where today unfortunately not many people know All Saints Day anymore. It's mostly a Christian holiday and I think even most Christians don't know All Saints Day anyway. But it used to be a very big holiday where they honored a lot of the saints, you know from , from before that time. Let's continue. This holiday it was a feast day to celebrate all Christian saints it was originally called 'All Hallow Day.' Again hallow , hallow was also , I mean it could be connected to holy but it was also an old word for Saint. So All Hallow, for all the saints. It used to be celebrated in the spring. but was moved to November 1st by Pope Gregory the IV in 835 AD. So he moved it to November 1st which was simply the day after, another day that the Celts used for a Samhain festival. Okay. So let's take a look at that. So October 31st used to be the last day of the year in the old Celtic calendar. Okay. The Celts used to believe the boundaries between the living and the dead were closer at the very end of the year. They thought it was easier for the dead to visit the living at this time. The Celts used to have a pagan festival called Samhain. All the traditions of the original Halloween costumes of ghosts , witches, devils, etc. came from this festival. So really, this really comes from the pagan festival that we celebrate Halloween from. So that's what they thought. It was believed the dead rose for one night just before All Saints Day. But the name was actually changed due to All Saints Day because it really was changed to the the Eve or the day before the All Saints Day. Okay. Let's continue. After the Pope moved the holiday the Samhain Festival started to be referred to as all Hallow E'en which eventually formed into the word Halloween today. So it's kind of ironic. So these two holidays are directly connected even though All Saints Day really is not so well known anymore. And it's mostly just a Christian holiday. Halloween however, is celebrated throughout the entire country in the US. It is mostly an American holiday even though its roots come from Scotland and the pagan festivals that they used to have there. Okay. Anyway , well I hope you got it. I hope it was informative. Thank you for your time. Bye- bye
B2 US eve halloween holiday day festival pagan English Tutor Nick P Word Origins (4) Halloween 133 0 anitawu12 posted on 2019/10/13 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary