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:
“Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely nil. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak.... They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“With a broad shoehorn
I am unstuffing a big bird in this dream
Msomebody else’s holiday feast—
and repacking the crop of my own,
knowing it will burst with such
onion, oyster, savory bread crust.”
—Maxine Kumin (b. 1925)