Lenten

Or lent·en

[len-tn]

adjective

1. of, relating to, or suitable for Lent.

2. suggesting Lent, as in austerity, frugality, or rigorousness; meager.

lenten

/ ˈlɛntən /

adjective

1. (often capital) of or relating to Lent

2. archaic,  spare, plain, or meagre

   lenten fare

3. archaic,  cold, austere, or sombre

   a lenten lover

Word History and Origins

Origin of Lenten¹

First recorded before 900; Middle English lente(n) “spring, springtime, Lent,” noun use of Old English noun and adjective lengten, læncgten, lencten “spring, springtime, Lent; of springtime, Lenten”; later taken as an adjective ending in -en; Lent, -en ²

Example Sentences

It allowed me to sing hallelujah in the Lenten season,” referring to the run-up to Easter.

Read more on Salon

The length of time may be symbolic, but the call to action is not; a Lenten boycott of the retailer, says Bryant’s website, is “a spiritual act of resistance.”

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He traces his awareness of their potential to a moment, at the age of about 8, when his psychiatrist father took him to the Lenten carnival held every year at the mental hospital near where they lived in Valencia, Venezuela.

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That didn’t include the readers who reached out to me after I wrote a column about Mami’s capirotada — Mexican Lenten bread pudding.

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Diarmuid Ó Giolláin, professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, USA, said St Patrick's Day has always been marked not only because it was a celebration of the patron saint but also because a dispensation allowed the Lenten fast to be broken - meat to be eaten and alcohol drunk - whilst Christians everywhere else were fasting.

Read more on BBC