red letter day

See also: red-letter day

English

Alternative forms

• red-letter day

Etymology

An allusion to the practice, dating to classical antiquity, of marking important days in red on calendars.

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

red letter day (plural red letter days)

1. A day marked in red on calendars; a church feast day.
   • 1825, Christian Gleaner and Domestic Magazine, Volume 2, page 161:

     The only red-letter day occurring in July, is the twenty-fifth, called St James's Day.

   • 1893, Thomas De Quincey, “Conversation and Coleridge”, in Alexander H. Japp, editor, The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey‎^[1], volume II, London: William Heinemann:

     But the monsters who interrupt men in the middle of a sentence are to be found everywhere; and they are always practising. Red-letter days or black-letter days, festival or fast, makes no difference to them.

2. (idiomatic) A particularly significant day; a day of personal or sectarian celebration.

   Monday was a red letter day for her. She accomplished a lot and had fun doing it.

   We saw losses for days in a row, but Black Tuesday was the worst red letter day of them all.

   • 1975, John Ankenbruck, Twentieth Century History of Fort Wayne, page 286:

     "In the meantime, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre at Chicago was a red-letter day in the gangster wars."

   • 2007, Clyde Wilton, Wilton's Wit, iUniverse, page 3:

     So I assume that we all have some red letter days that are precious to our memories—maybe a first date, a wedding, a gift, a word of encouragement, a vacation, a graduation or a trip to an interesting place.
     I had one of those red letter days when I was a young boy, perhaps five or six years old.

   • 2010, Eric Braun, Doris Day, Hachette, Revised and updated edition, unnumbered page,

     That was, indeed, a red-letter day in my filmgoing life, and a red-letter day in my literary life was when I was asked to write a new biography of Doris Day.

Usage notes

• Usually used to refer to a notably positive, favorable occasion, but sometimes used with a negative sense.

Synonyms

• day of days
• red letter date

Coordinate terms

• black letter day

Translations

day of special significance

• Catalan: diada (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 大日子 (dàrìzǐ), 里程碑 (zh) (lǐchéngbēi)

• Danish: please add this translation if you can
• Dutch: please add this translation if you can
• Finnish: merkkipäivä (fi)
• Hungarian: piros betűs nap, piros betűs ünnep
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: merkedag m

  Nynorsk: merkedag m

• Russian: па́мятный день m (pámjatnyj denʹ), пра́здник (ru) m (prázdnik)
• Swedish: röd dag (sv) c

See also

• Scarlet Day