Forms: see YEAR and DAY; also year’s day (yeeres dai, etc.). [In OE. ʓéares dæʓ = OFris. ierisdei, MDu. jaersdagh, OHG. jâr(s)tac (MHG. jarstag, G. jahrstag).]
† 1. (year’s day.) The first day of the year, New Year’s Day. Obs. (Cf. F. jour de l’an.)
a. 1122. O. E. Chron. (Laud MS.), an. 1096. To ʓeares dæʓe.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), IV. 275. [Christ] hadde of þe firste ȝere of his burþe but sevene dayes from þe nativite to ȝeresday.
2. A day observed every year in commemoration of a person or event, an anniversary; esp. a day on which requiem services were held every year in commemoration of a deceased person: cf. OBIT 2 b and YEAR’S MIND, Obs. exc. Hist.
1390. Gower, Conf., II. 171. To every godd … Thei made a temple forth withal, And ech of hem his yeeres dai Attitled hadde.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 537/2. Ȝerday, anniversarius.
1448. in Eng. Gilds (1870), 281. We haue ordeyned … for to kepe the ȝereday of Jon lyster of Cambryge ȝerely.
c. 1450. in Aungier, Syon (1840), 275. How be it the fyrst dirige may be differred,… ȝet the xxxti day and ȝeres day schal neuer be differed.
1526. Lincoln Wills (1914), I. 179. That the sayd feoffers … yerely kepe up the aforsayd tyme my yereday for my soule.
1579–80. North, Plutarch (1595), 584. The very daies on the which the women celebrated the feast and yeareday of Adonis death.
3. pl. Days of the year.
1897–8. Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., p. xliii. (Cent. Dict., Suppl.). A simple observation on the setting sun behind a distant sierra, which would in itself permit a count of year-days, if not the recognition of the bissextile.
