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Technically, midwinter is the day of the solstice, which was Dec. 22 in the Northern Hemisphere. Think about it logically: the solstice represents the shortest
by NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
Technically, midwinter is the day of the solstice, which was Dec. 22 in the Northern Hemisphere.
Think about it logically: the solstice represents the shortest day and longest night of the year.
That's the typical modern connotation. It could also mean Christmas Day or Christmastime. Your description is a quite rare meaning indeed.
- crazygringo 3y agoSo this is one of those linguistic paradoxes, where flammable means inflammable, and midwinter is the first day of winter rather than the middle? Ugh... I hate vocabulary.
- AlecSchueler 3y agoThink of the year split up between the solstices and it makes sense. The end of December is the most extreme time of winter light, and the end of June of winter light.
- cykros 3y agoThe first day of winter very much depends on where you are. I hear that in Ireland it is considered to start around the first of November. The old norse celebrated 3 days of "Winter Nights to usher in its beginning, and the English celebrated Winterfylleth, to much the same end, typically in mid-late October. It's also worth noting that in the old Germanic calendars, there were considered to be 2, rather than 4 seasons. Summer and Winter. If you break up the solar year and have the time between the spring and fall equinox as "summer" and the time between fall and spring equinox as "winter", the winter solstice is smack dab in the middle. Worth pointing out though is that Germanic peoples mostly used a lunisolar, rather than purely solar or purely lunar calendar, which is why we rarely see these historical holidays falling directly on such astronomical events.