A bank holiday is a public holiday in the United Kingdom or other commonwealth countries, or a colloquialism for public holiday in Ireland. There is no automatic right to time off on these days, although banks close and the majority of the population is granted time off work or extra pay for working on these days, depending on their contract. The first official bank holidays were the four days named in the Bank Holidays Act 1871, but today the term is colloquially (albeit incorrectly) used for public holidays which are not officially bank holidays, for example Good Friday and Christmas Day. Many large shops open on bank holidays, when most people have a day off for shopping, heavily advertising sales and bargains.
Read more about Bank Holiday: History, List of Current Holidays
Famous quotes containing the words bank and/or holiday:
“When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Exodus 2:3.
“You will think me very pedantic, gentlemen, but holiday though it may be, I have not the smallest interest in any holiday, except as it celebrates real and not pretended joys.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)