dominical letter

American  

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.

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dominical letter British  

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

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Etymology

Origin of dominical letter

First recorded in 1570–80

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

dominical letter

Hence the following table of dominical letters for four hundred years will serve to show the dominical letter of any year in the Gregorian calendar for ever.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" by Various

In order to make use of the solar cycle in finding the dominical letter, it is necessary to know that the first year of the Christian era began with Saturday.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" by Various

Read from this to the letter which begins the given month, always reading from A toward G, calling the dominical letter Sunday, the next Monday, etc.

From Our Calendar by Packer, George Nichols

B is also dominical letter, New Style; for we take the remainder after dividing by 7, from the same number.

From Our Calendar by Packer, George Nichols

Let L denote the number of the dominical letter of any given year of the era.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" by Various