Difference between revisions of "Whit Sunday"

Latest revision as of 20:47, 24 February 2022

A season in the Christian year is known as Whit. This originated as Whit Sunday (for modern 'White Sunday'), the seventh Sunday after Easter. Pentecost (in Greek Πεντηκοστή [ἡμέρα] (Pentēkostē [hēmera], 'fiftieth [day]')) is the Greek name of the Jewish 'Festival of Weeks' (Shavu'ot), which occurs fifty days after the 2nd day of Passover - i.e. the day of Jesus's Resurrection. On the Pentecost in the year of the Crucifixion, the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples (see Acts, chapter II). Whit Sunday commemorates that event, and the weekend in which it falls is Whitsuntide. The following day is Whit Monday, and the whole week is Whit Week.

"The epithet ‘white’ is generally taken to refer to the ancient custom of the wearing of white baptismal robes by the newly-baptized at the feast of Pentecost (compare Dominica in albis, the name of the First Sunday after Easter, Low Sunday, given for the same reason)" (OED).

• • Whit has long been a time of festival and traditional entertainment: in much of Lancashire and Yorkshire, Whit Sunday was marked by Whit Walks, in which church congregations processed round their parishes wearing their best clothes, and singing hymns.

Philip Larkin's famous poem The Whitsun Weddings was stimulated by the sight of many jovial parties on the platforms of the stations through which his train passed, waving off on their honeymoon journeys the couples whose marriage they had just helped to celebrate.

Do not confuse the proper noun Whit with the common noun whit, 
     which in ordinary current English is a faintly archaic and mannered expression, mostly used in negative formations: 
     it means 'a very small amount', 'a bit'. "Not a whit" means 'with no appreciable effect, or difference', 'by no means', 'not a bit of it'.

            See also whit - wit.