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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. The evening or day preceding a special day, such as a holiday.
  2. n. The period immediately preceding a certain event: the eve of war.
  3. n. Evening.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. The close of the day; the evening.
  2. n. The night or evening (often, and specifically in the Roman Catholic Church, the day and night) before certain holy days of the church, marked more or less generally by religious and popular observances. The religious observance usually consists of a service only, and in the Church of England of the reading of the collect peculiar to the festival. (See vigil.) Technically, an eve is not observed with a fast. Also even.
  3. n. The period just preceding some specific event; a space of time proximate to the occurrence of something: as, the eve of a battle; on the eve of a revolution.
  4. To become damp.
  5. n. A hen-roost.

Wiktionary

  1. n. The day or night before, usually used for holidays, such as Christmas Eve.
  2. n. Evening, night.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. Evening.
  2. n. The evening before a holiday, -- from the Jewish mode of reckoning the day as beginning at sunset, not at midnight; ; also, the period immediately preceding some important event.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. the period immediately before something
  2. n. the day before
  3. n. (Old Testament) Adam's wife in Judeo-Christian mythology: the first woman and mother of the human race; God created Eve from Adam's rib and placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden
  4. n. the latter part of the day (the period of decreasing daylight from late afternoon until nightfall)

Etymologies

  1. Middle English, variant of even; see even2.

Examples

  • “Meanwhile, all I have for Chinese New Year eve is just instant noodle with a fried egg.”

    Sad New Year

  • “Can you imagine it sending chills up your spine and tears in your eyes such as when the crew of Apollo 8 read Genesis on live TV on Christmas eve from the moon, as we saw earthrise for the first time in human history?”

    Thinking About the Vision - NASA Watch

  • “Xmas eve is the night of most family celebrations, xmas day is almost just another day.”

    Christmas Travel to Yucatan

  • “You dont need to create a new char when you hit some kind of “level” limit (there is no limit in eve, you can learn everything there is, given time).”

    EXTRALIFE – By Scott Johnson - The incredible tale of spys, double agents, and assasination in EVE Online

  • “| Reply from what i remember eve has allowed trading of in game currency for real currency. there are around 2 or 3 such games allowing credits trade and eve is one of them. um ...”

    EXTRALIFE – By Scott Johnson - The incredible tale of spys, double agents, and assasination in EVE Online

  • “The sixth day they commonly called the eve of the sabbath: "To wash their clothes on the fifth day of the sabbath, and eat onions on the eve of the sabbath.”

    From the Talmud and Hebraica

  • “The woman whose whole existence, from early dawn to dewy eve, is regulated by a standard of manners imposed upon her from without, whose ideals are purely artificial and equally reflected, will suddenly, and at an unexpected moment, reveal another and fundamental side of her nature of which she herself has probably lived in entire ignorance.”

    Marriage as a Trade

  • “Pronounce the word eve, for example, slowly and distinctly, observing the sounds which compose the word, and the movements of the organs in producing them.”

    The American Union Speaker

  • “I will give you a brief synopsis of three potentially award-winning scripts: 1) A cheapskate who falls asleep Christmas eve is visited by the ghosts of x-mas past, present and future.”

    Writing For Hollywood

  • “LATTIMORE: You know, it is estimated that it will be there Christmas eve, which is very, very interesting.”

    CNN Transcript Nov 14, 2009

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Lists

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  • muamor "Curiosity killed The Eve." Jun 26, 2007

‘eve’ has been looked up 2656 times, loved by 2 people, added to 23 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 6. It's also a palindrome.