Dictionary

halcyon days en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈhælsiən deɪz/

Etymology

From halcyon, from Latin Alcyone, from Ancient Greek Ἀλκυόνη (Alkuónē), daughter of Aeolus and wife of Ceyx. When her husband died in a shipwreck, Alcyone threw herself into the sea whereupon the gods transformed them both into halcyon birds (kingfishers). When Alcyone made her nest on the beach, waves threatened to destroy it. Aeolus restrained his winds and kept them calm during seven days in each year, so she could lay her eggs. These became known as the "halcyon days," when storms do not occur. Today, the term is used to denote a past period that is being remembered for being happy or successful.

Meanings

1. (plural, plural-normally) A period of calm during the winter, when storms do not occur.
2. (idiomatic, plural, plural-normally) A period of calm, usually in the past and often nostalgic.
   • Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all! / The brooding and blissful halcyon days! 1891, Walt Whitman, “Halcyon Days”, in Leaves of Grass:
   • It was a halcyon day, and as they neared the shore and the salt breezes scurried by, he began to picture the ocean and long, level stretches of sand and red roofs over blue sea. 1920, F. Scott Fitzgerald, chapter 2, in This Side of Paradise, book 1:
   • Expect Saint Martins summer, Halcyon dayes, / Since I haue entred into theſe Warres. 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], page 98:
   • halcyon days of youth
   • halcyon days of yore
   • And the ragged rock in the restless waters, / Waves wash over it, fogs conceal it; / On a halcyon day it is merely a monument, / In navigable weather is always a seamark / to lay a course by: but in the sombre season / Or the sudden fury, is what it always was. 1941, Thomas S. Eliot, “The Dry Salvages”, in Four Quartets:
   • And, by the way, during those halcyon days (the halcyon was there, too, chattering above every creek, as he is all over the world) we fought another battle. c. 1880, Ambrose Bierce, On a Mountain:
   • Back in the halcyon days of 1997, a proposal was made for encoding the “pIqaD” characters used for writing Klingon (XIFAN HOL). 2016, Mark Shoulson, “pIqaD (Klingon) and its Usage”, in Unicode, archived from the original on 24 Aug 2021, page 1:

Forms

Relateds

back in the day · days of wine and roses · days of yore · Alcyone · salad days · nostalgia · heyday · halcyon

Translations (18)

nl vredige tijden (halcyon days) · es días tranquilos (halcyon days) · el αλκυονίδες ημέρες (halcyon days) · vi những ngày thanh bình (halcyon days) · hu boldog békeidők (halcyon days) · fr jours heureux (halcyon days) · pl czasy świetności (halcyon days) · uk безтурботні часи (halcyon days) · fi jäälinnun päivät (halcyon days) · la alcēdōnia (halcyon days) · yue 美好嘅日子 (halcyon days) · nl rustig weer (halcyon days) · sv sötebrödsdagar (halcyon days) · cs staré zlaté časy (halcyon days) · sv glada dagar (halcyon days) · it giorni alcionii (halcyon days) · de Halkyonische Tage (halcyon days) · hu gyöngyélet (halcyon days)