Arnold Zwicky's Blog

From several sources recently, references to the word triduum. From NOAD2:

(especially in the Roman Catholic Church) a period of three days’ observance, specifically Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. ORIGIN Latin, from tri- ‘three’ + dies ‘day’.

But the term could easily be used for any three-day holiday, of which there are a number in the US, Canada, and UK (among other places).

The Wikipedia entry for triduum explains how Easter Sunday gets into it, through the definition of day that (as in Jewish tradition) begins and ends at sunset:

Easter Triduum, Holy Triduum, Paschal Triduum, or The Three Days, is the period of three days that begins with the liturgy on the evening of Maundy Thursday (the vigil of Good Friday) [the day of the Last Supper] and ends with evening prayer on Easter Sunday, the three-day period therefore from the evening of Maundy Thursday (excluding most of Thursday) to the evening of Resurrection Sunday. It recalls the passion, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, as portrayed in the canonical Gospels.

Extending the usage, we could have the (US) Labor Day Triduum, the (US) Memorial Day Triduum, and so on. Triduum is one word, three syllables, marginally shorter than three-day weekend (two or three words, depending on how you count, four syllables). Consider it.

This entry was posted on November 4, 2013 at 8:09 am and is filed under Holidays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.