Spring Festival

English

Etymology

The Chinese New Year sense is a calque of Chinese 春節 / 春节 (Chūnjié), the usual modern name for the holiday. By surface analysis, and when not referring to the Chinese holiday, a proprialization of spring +‎ festival.

Noun

Spring Festival (plural Spring Festivals)

1. (chiefly China) Synonym of Chinese New Year.

   They plan to visit Shanghai during Spring Festival.

   • 1991 February 21 [1991 February 15], “Hou Zongbin Visits Grass-Roots Workers”, in Daily Report: China, number 91-035, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, →ISSN, →OCLC, Regional Affairs, page 39, column 1, sourced from Zhengzhou Henan Provincial Service, translation of original in Mandarin:

     Comrade Hou Zongbin came to the environmental sanitation transfer station on (Ninggong) Road, Erqi [translating 二七 (Èrqī)] District, and warmly clasped hands with two workers (Chu Yuwen) and (Zhao Dongfang), voicing his thanks to more than 2,400 environmental sanitation workers throughout the city, including these two, who had been working so hard that the people in the provincial capital could enjoy a happy, civilized, and peaceful Spring Festival, and wishing them good health and family happiness.

   • 2020, Dru C. Gladney, Muslim Chinese..., page 192:

     Although the Hui in the northwest do not celebrate the Han holidays of Zhongqiu, Qingming, or even Chun Jie (Spring Festival), the Hui in most of China's cities gladly participate.

2. (sometimes) Any other particular festival marking the beginning of spring.

   Coordinate terms: winter festival, winter holiday, summer holiday

   Our school's Spring Festival is next week.