Yuletide
Americannoun
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the Christmas season.
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the season of an ancient Germanic pagan holiday centering around the winter solstice, now sometimes celebrated by neopagans.
adjective
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of or relating to the Christmas season.
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of or relating to the season of an ancient Germanic pagan holiday centering around the winter solstice, now sometimes celebrated by neopagans.
Usage
What does yuletide mean? Yuletide is sometimes used as another word for Christmastime—the Christmas season. The word yule can be used as another name for Christmas, the Christian holiday to celebrate the birth of Jesus. It can also be used to mean the same thing as yuletide—the Christmas season. However, yule can also refer to the celebration of the Winter Solstice that’s observed in some Pagan traditions, and yuletide can be applied to the time when this is observed. Regardless of which holiday is being observed, yuletide occurs in late December. When it’s used in reference to Christmas, yuletide is often intended to sound a bit old-timey—yuletide carols being sung by a choir, and all that. Example: I cherish the yuletide memories of my youth, of sitting by the hearth and listening to tales of Christmases gone by.
Etymology
Origin of Yuletide
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.
Experts say 2025 heralds the Grinch’s ascent from Yuletide bit player to Christmas A-lister.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 25, 2025
But the vibes were darker this year, quite literally: Melania showed up to the event dressed less for Yuletide than for the funeral of a second-tier Batman villain.
From Salon • Dec. 11, 2025
“It gets really bad at Christmastime,” one long-suffering woman working at the pastry counter told me, noting that Yuletide season is fast upon us.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 15, 2025
On Dec. 16, the Churchtown Dairy in Claverack, New York, once again hosted a Yuletide tradition: caroling to the herd of 28 cattle that call the cathedral-like barn their winter home.
From Seattle Times • Dec. 24, 2023
Southside shops were featuring feeble wreaths and lights, made more feeble by the tacky Yuletide streamers and bells the city had strung up on the lampposts.
From "Song of Solomon" by Toni Morrison
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.
