dominical letter

noun

1. any one of the letters from A to G used in church calendars to mark the Sundays throughout any particular year, serving primarily to aid in determining the date of Easter.

dominical letter

noun

1. Christianity any one of the letters A to G as used to denote Sundays in a given year in order to determine the church calendar

Word History and Origins

Origin of dominical letter¹

First recorded in 1570–80

Example Sentences

This is an excellent rule; the same, I believe, that is to this day prescribed for arriving at the Dominical letter of the Old Style.

From Project Gutenberg

Dominical, do-min′ik-al, adj. belonging to our Lord, as the Lord's Prayer, the Lord's Day.—Dominical letter, one of the first seven letters of the alphabet, used in calendars to mark the Sundays throughout the year.

From Project Gutenberg

Did the year consist of only 363 days, thus wanting one day of an even number of weeks, then these remainders, instead of being taken from a given remainder, would be added to that number, thus removing the dominical letter forward one place, and the beginning of the year, instead of being one day later, would be one day earlier in the week than in the preceding year.

From Project Gutenberg

Thus, if the year 1 of the era be taken from 3, we would have 3 - 1 = 2; therefore, B being the second letter, is dominical letter for the year 1.

From Project Gutenberg

As A represented all the Sundays in 1837 and as A always stands for the first day of January, so in 1838 it will represent all the Mondays, and the dominical letter goes back from A to G; so that G represents all the Sundays in 1838, A all the Mondays, B all the Tuesdays, and so on, the dominical letter going back one place in every year of 365 days.

From Project Gutenberg