xmas

plural xmases

1. alternativeinformalAlternative form of Xmas.

plural Xmases · plural Xmasses · alternative X'mas · alternative X-mas · alternative x-mas · alternative Internet Xms · alternative archaic Xtmas

1. abbreviationcountableinformaluncountableAbbreviation of Christmas.

   On Xmas Day I breakfasted with Davy, with the intention of dining with you...

   1801 December 31, Samuel Coleridge, “letter to R. Southey”, Ten Letters from Coleridge to Southey, in The Atlantic Monthly, volume 73, number 435, published January 1894, page 66

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   In ye Xmas and Whitsuntide Vacations, ye Scholars study at a rate of an hour and a Quarter each day & all yt go home have proportionable Tasks set them...

   c. 1755, Bernard Ward, History of St. Edmund's college, Old Hall, page 303

   A thousand thanks, merry Xmasses & happy New Years to you for yʳ delightful letter: […]

   1774 December 20, David Garrick, “Letters from David Garrick, to George Colman, the Elder”, in George Colman, the Younger, editor, Posthumous Letters, from Various Celebrated Men; Addressed to Francis Colman, and George Colman, the Elder: […], London: T[homas] Cadell and W[illiam] Davies, […]; and W[illiam] Blackwood, Edinburgh, published 1820, page 302

   […]but if you won't come here before Xmas, I very much fear we shall not meet here at all[…]

   1811 September 9, George Gordon Byron, “To the Hon. Augusta Leigh”, in Rowland E. Prothero, editor, The Works of Lord Byron, volume 9, London: John Murray, published 1898, page 31

   My dear Wilkie,—we will arrange our Xmas No., please God, under the shade of the Oak Trees.

   1861 June 23, Charles Dickens, “Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent”, in Laurence Hutton, editor, Letters of Charles Dickens to Wilkie Collins, New York: Harper & Brothers, published 1892, page 100

   I should be very glad if you could help me in fixing on a name for my fairy-tale, which Mr. Tenniel (in consequence of your kind introduction) is now illustrating for me, and which I hope to get published before Xmas.

   1864 June 10, Lewis Carroll, edited by Morton N. Cohen, The Letters of Lewis Carroll, volume 1, London: Macmillan, published 1979, page 65

present singular third person Xmass · present singular third person Xmasses · participle present Xmasing · participle present Xmassing · participle past Xmased · past Xmased · participle past Xmassed · past Xmassed · alternative X'mas · alternative X-mas · alternative x-mas · alternative Internet Xms · alternative archaic Xtmas

1. abbreviationinformalAbbreviation of Christmas.

   N:Castle (Xmassing and wanted at play)

   1764 January 9, Josiah Wedgwood, private correspondence; quoted in Eliza Meteyard, The Life of Josiah Wedgwood, from His Private Correspondence and Family Papers […], volume I, London: Hurst and Blackett, […], 1865, page 333

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   I wᵈ not have you think yᵗ we have no Xmassing here; we have had as large a round of dinners at Pau as we could have at Welsbourn (tho perhaps (to me) not quite so pleasant).

   1788 January 3, Court Dewes, “Court Dewes, Esq., to Miss Port, at Windsor”, in Lady Llanover [i.e., Augusta Hall, Baroness Llanover], editor, The Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville, Mrs. Delany: With Interesting Reminiscences of King George the Third and Queen Charlotte, second series, volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], published 1862, page 469

   Barking, Saturday, Nov. 29. / Dear and Respected Master, / Excusez ma “franchise,” but “Essence of Parliament” is this week represented by ˣ⁄ₓ, and that’s the reason Y. So no more at present from Your fond and faithful Toby. / “Confound his algebraical impudence!” exclaimed Mr. Punch. “He’s beginning Xmassing already. When he returns, I shall make Master Toby sit up.”

   1884 December 6, “Essence of Parliament”, in Punch, or The London Charivari, volume LXXXVII, number 2265, London: […] [T]he Office, […], page 268

   Charles Snelling and wife, of Belleview, Xmased with father and mother Snelling, of Rock Spring.

   1905 January 4, “[County Correspondence.] Commissary.”, in Boone County Recorder, volume XXX, number 12, Burlington, Ky., front page, column 2

   We have Xmassed and are still doing so. We had an awful Xmas dinner that took hours, the whole staff dining together, which as we saw each other all day and every day was most funereal as no one could think of anything to say to each other.

   1916 December 28, Dorothy Seymour, journal; quoted in Anne Powell, “[1916 – Dardanelles, Persia, Romania, Russia and Mesopotamia] Miss Dorothy Seymour: Anglo-Russian Hospital, Petrograd, Russia”, in Women in the War Zone: Hospital Service in the First World War, Stroud, Glos.: The History Press, 2009, →ISBN, page 304

   Barrett Gilbert, the Gotham storager, has gifted us with a refiller for the desk pad he Xmased us with a yr ago, with gold edges.

   1923 January, “[Two Bits: A Bit Here, A Bit There] News Items”, in Distribution & Warehousing, volume XXII, number 1, New York, N.Y.: The Class Journal Co., page 47

1. pluralplural of XMA