Friday, April 09, 2004

How seasonally appropriate, thanks to Meriam Webster:

The Word of the Day for Apr 08 is:

Pasch \PASK\ noun

*1 : Easter
2 : Passover


Example sentence:"Miss Ina will not be for burying him in the kirkyard, but in Isle-Monach, where my Donald would be seeing ghosts at Yule and Pasch." (Walter C. Smith, "Kildrostan")

Did you know?
Easter is sometimes called the Christian Passover, and Passover the Jewish Easter. Given that, it's not surprising that "Pasch" comes from the Hebrew word for "Passover" — "pesah." That word, in turn, is from Hebrew "pâsah," meaning "to pass over." One interpretation (though not the only one) is that the word refers to the final plague before the Jews were permitted to leave Egypt (the Exodus commemorated by the celebration of Passover), in which God slew the firstborn sons of the Egyptians but passed over the Jewish households. "Pesah" became "pascha" in Greek, then "Pasch" in English, which, like a basket with two eggs, has held both a reference to Passover and to the Christian celebration of Christ's Resurrection since at least 1200.