(a.) Of, pertaining to, or observed at, Whitsuntide; as, Whitsun week; Whitsun Tuesday; Whitsun pastorals.
Example Sentences:
(1) The justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke , has postponed plans to announce his sentencing reforms, including the controversial move to increase discounts for early guilty pleas, until after the Whitsun break.
(2) The sentencing green paper, which was to set out proposals to stabilise the prison population next week, is now likely to be postponed for three weeks until after the Whitsun recess.
(3) The trip often reminds me of English lessons at school spent learning The Whitsun Weddings , Philip Larkin ’s train trip through the home counties where the “wide farms” and “short shadowed cattle” eventually give way to the outskirts of London: “Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat.” On some mornings, when the sunlight or cloud formations are just right, I am grateful for it to the point of smugness.
Whitsuntide
Definition:
(n.) The week commencing with Whitsunday, esp. the first three days -- Whitsunday, Whitsun Monday, and Whitsun Tuesday; the time of Pentecost.
Example Sentences:
(1) I thought every town in Christian England had one, but apparently the custom of marking Whitsuntide with processions of excited children done up in their Sunday best dates from the annual closing of the northern mills, and it’s in the north – mills or no mills – that the tradition is still honoured.