bank holiday

1. A day on which banks are legally closed.
2. Chiefly British. A legal holiday when banks are ordered to remain closed.

1. Uniform schedule of national holidays honored by financial institutions. State holidays are not standardized, however. Under the Uniform Commercial Code, interbank payments delayed by a holiday are payable the next business day.

2. Temporary closing of a bank by government officials. The most famous "bank holiday" is the one-week nationwide closing in 1933, ordered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to control a wave of bank failures and restore confidence in the banking system.

The institution of Bank Holidays had a profound effect on the leisure patterns of the working classes, and affected the traditional calendar in that many customs were pulled from their traditional days to take place on the nearest Bank Holiday. They were introduced to sort out a long-standing problem in the financial world by allowing bills of exchange which fell due on national holidays to be payable on the following day; thus allowing banks to close on those holidays. In addition, they were part of the drive to regularize holidays for working people. The Bank Holidays Act of 1871, strenuously promoted by Sir John Lubbock (later Lord Avebury), stipulated (for England) Easter Monday, Whit Monday, the first Monday of August, and Boxing Day (26 December), in addition to Christmas Day and Good Friday which were already holidays under common law. This pattern remained unchanged until the 1970s when the moveable Whitsun was replaced by a fixed Spring Bank Holiday; New Year's Day was added in 1974; and May Day (or the first Monday in May) was added in 1978. In the late 1980s, a government plan to replace May Day by a later holiday (e.g. Trafalgar Day, 21 October) came to nothing after much public debate.

Bibliography
The full bibliography list is available here.

• J. A. R. Pimlott, The Englishman's Holiday (1947)
• The Times (various dates throughout 1871)
• Encyclopaedia Britannica

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: any of several weekdays when banks are closed; a legal holiday in Britain