Up-Helly-Aa

British

/ ˌʌpˈhɛlɪɑː /

noun

a midwinter festival held in January in Shetland; originally a fire festival, but now a celebration of Shetland's Norse heritage, involving the ceremonial burning of a newly built Viking ship

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of Up-Helly-Aa

from _up (in the sense: finished) + haliday a Scottish form of _holiday

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023