Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Thanksgiving

Thanks′giv′ing (thănks′gĭv′ĭng or thănks′gĭv′ĭng), n. 1. The act of rending thanks, or expressing gratitude for favors or mercies.

Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving. 1 Tim. iv. 4.

In the thanksgiving before meat. Shak.

And taught by thee the Church prolongs Her hymns of high thanksgiving still. Keble.

2. A public acknowledgment or celebration of divine goodness; also, a day set apart for religious services, specially to acknowledge the goodness of God, either in any remarkable deliverance from calamities or danger, or in the ordinary dispensation of his bounties.

☞ In the United States it is now customary for the President by proclamation to appoint annually a day (usually the last Thursday in November) of thanksgiving and praise to God for the mercies of the past year. This is an extension of the custom long prevailing in several States in which an annual Thanksgiving day has been appointed by proclamation of the governor.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.