Word.ws English Dictionary

black-letter day

black-letter day is the alternative form of black letter day.

Meaning of black letter day

Noun

black letter day (plural black letter days)

  1. A day marked in ancient calendars in black letter, as distinguished from the more import red letter days; an inauspicious day.
    • So pray consider the kill-joy proposition as entirely retracted, and give us something of yourselves, only on simple black-letter days when the Herald Angels have not been raising expectations early in the morning.1877 December 3, George Eliot, “Letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones”, in J. W. Cross, editor, George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals, volume III, published 1885, page 233

Forms of black-letter day

pluralblack-letter days

Questions about black-letter day

What is black-letter day the alternative form of?
Black-letter day is the alternative form of black letter day.

Words near black-letter day in the dictionary

  1. black-legged kittiwake
  2. black-legged kittiwakes
  3. black-legged tick
  4. black-legged ticks
  5. black-letter
  6. black-letter day
  7. black-letter days
  8. black-letter law
  9. black-lipped pika
  10. black-lipped pikas
  11. black-market

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: black-letter day (page history and authors); black letter day (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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