loveday
See also: Loveday
English edit
Etymology edit
Inherited from Middle English loveday; equivalent to love + day.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
loveday (plural lovedays)
- (now historical) A day appointed for a meeting intended to amicably resolve a dispute; also the meeting held on such a day. [from 14th c.]
- c. 1385, William Langland, Piers Plowman, section III:
- She ledeth þe lawe as hire list · and louedayes maketh / And doth men lese þorw hire loue · þat lawe myȝte wynne.
- 1983, John Bossy, Disputes and Settlements: Law and Human Relations in the West, page 60:
- legal records cannot provide consistent evidence about lovedays because they were, strictly speaking, outside their terms of reference […].
- 1994, John Clarence Bedell, Dispute Settlement and the Control of Violence in England, 1272-1330:
- In our period, all the people of England made lovedays, from the richest to the poorest.
- (chiefly poetical) A day devoted to love. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
Middle English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
loveday (plural lovedayes)
- loveday (day for dispute resolution)
- (figuratively) Any time of peaceableness.
Descendants edit
- English: loveday (now historical)
References edit
- “lǒve-dai, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.