festal
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
- festally adverb
Etymology
Origin of festal
First recorded in 1470–80; from Latin fēst(um) feast + -al 1
Explanation
If you're throwing a party and you want it to be fun and fabulous, you're hoping for a festal event. Anything that's festal has a jubilant, celebratory quality. The adjective festal is a little old-fashioned; these days, you're more likely to use festive instead. The two words are closely related to festival, which was originally defined as "a festal day." All three words share a Latin root, festum, or "feast" — and everyone knows that a feast is at the heart of every truly festal celebration.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
At the Blue Note, Jean performs a kind of Haitian exceptionalism: a sensorially rich, festal theater that serves as a necessary counterweight to the country’s grim realities of poverty and political neglect.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 25, 2026
Rather than succumbing to despair and too much eggnog, theater companies have instead turned to performance capture, audio drama, livestream, green screen, shadow puppets and virtual reality to deliver festal entertainment.
From New York Times • Dec. 12, 2020
Celebrate the birth of Christ at this festal liturgy with special music and an extended, candlelit prelude of seasonal organ music, choral anthems and congregational carols that begins at 10 p.m.
From Washington Post • Dec. 23, 2016
Yet for all the irrepressible flamboyance of the Dickens atmosphere, the story certainly presents us with someone committed to the suppression of the festal world, and of kindness itself.
From The Guardian • Dec. 19, 2015
He gave his hateful mother and her soft man a tomb together, and proclaimed the funeral day a festal day for all the Argive people.
From "The Odyssey" by Homer
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
