Name: English Tutor Nick P Word Origins (4) Halloween
Uploaded: 2019-10-13T14:53:39.000Z
Duration: 3 min 52 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origins 4. Today the word origin

we're going to do is 'Halloween'  Now which is coming up soon. So it will be very suitable

for that time. All right. Let's take a look at the note here. The origin of the

word Halloween comes from Scotland. In Scottish all Hallow E'en meant holy Eve.

Yeah. So hallow  really meant holy. The eve meant either like evening or eve. We

know even today in English.  eve always means the day before. Just like we say

New Year's Eve and we say Christmas Eve. It's always the day before. So all Hallow

e'en meant Holy Eve. Let's continue this of course was the evening before

the celebration of All Saints Day. It's kind of ironic in a way. Because way back

in about a thousand years ago , All Saints Day was the more important holiday. And

was celebrated a lot where today unfortunately not many people know All

Saints Day anymore. It's mostly a Christian holiday and I think even most Christians

don't know All Saints Day anyway. But it used to be a very big holiday where they

honored a lot of the saints,  you know from , from before that time. Let's

continue. This holiday it was a feast day to celebrate all Christian saints it was

originally called 'All Hallow Day.' Again hallow , hallow was also , I mean it could

be connected to holy but it was also an old word for Saint. So All Hallow,  for

all the saints.  It used to be celebrated in the spring.

but was moved to November 1st by Pope Gregory the IV in 835 AD. So he moved it

to November 1st which was simply the day after,  another day that the Celts used

for a Samhain festival. Okay. So let's take a look at that. So October 31st used to

be the last day of the year in the old Celtic calendar. Okay.  The Celts used to

believe the boundaries between  the living and the dead were closer at

the very end of the year. They thought it was easier for the dead to visit the

living at this time. The Celts used to have a pagan festival called Samhain.

All the traditions of the original Halloween costumes of ghosts , witches,

devils,  etc.  came from this festival. So really,  this really comes from the pagan

festival that we celebrate Halloween from. So that's what they thought. It was

believed the dead rose for one night just before All Saints Day. But the name

was actually changed due to All Saints Day because it really was changed to the

the Eve or the day before the All Saints Day. Okay. Let's continue. After the Pope

moved the holiday the Samhain Festival started to be referred to as all

Hallow E'en which eventually formed into the word Halloween today. So it's kind of

ironic. So these two holidays are directly connected even though All

Saints Day really is not so well known anymore. And it's mostly just a Christian

holiday.  Halloween however,  is celebrated throughout the entire country

in the US.  It  is mostly an American holiday even though its roots come from

Scotland and the pagan festivals that they used to have there. Okay. Anyway , well I

hope you got it.  I hope it was informative. Thank you for your time. Bye- bye