Expression Idiomatique en anglais: Red letter day

23 février 2017 - Anglais : ressources

Red letter day

Meaning:

  • A day of significance.
  • An important occasion, festival or holiday.
  • A birthday, anniversary or a day of remembrance

Example sentences:

  • Tomorrow is her red letter day, she always celebrates it with a big party.
  • Sam and Sue like to celebrate their red letter day alone and out vacationing somewhere. This time they have taken their respective parents along too.
  • Next week we celebrate the biggest red letter day in the calendar for us, the independence of our country.

Origin:

The days of importance were marked in red colour in ancient Rome since the medieval times. Many calendars still prefer to print important dates in red instead of black. Some speculate that the church in 325 AD printed Holy days in red, which may not hold much ground due to the lack of evidence in that direction.

In the United Kingdom, apart from religiously important dates, dates of civil importance were also added in red in the calendar. All of these days came to be known as red letter days. The judges would dress in scarlet robes on the red letter days in UK. In a lot of other countries such as Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Latin America and even South Korea, public holidays are commonly referred to as red days and are printed in red.

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Source: http://english.idioms.in/red-letter-day/

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