a. and sb. [a. Fr. férial, ad. med.L. fēriālis, f. fēria: see prec.] A. adj.
1. Pertaining to the days of the week, or to a week-day as distinguished from a festival.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), VI. 293. Alcuinus … ordeyned here orisouns and office of masse for ferial days [per ferias].
c. 1450. trans. De Imitatione, I. xix. 23. Somme are more sauory in festiuale days, and somme in feriall.
1494. Fabyan, Chron., V. lxxxiii. 60. The thirde Feryall daye in the weke they named Wodnesday.
1503. Kalender Sheph. (1506), A v. The letters feryals of this Kalender.
1542. Boorde, Dyetary, vii. (1870), 243. Serve God the holy dayes as dylygently, yee, and more dylygentler than to do theyr worke the feryall dayes.
1563–87. Foxe, A. & M. (1684), II. 326 The commemoration of Thomas Becket … shall be clean omitted & instead thereof the ferial service used.
1858. Faber, Life Xavier, 65. In the afternoons of ferial days he visited the prisons.
1882–3. Schaff, Encycl. Relig. Knowl., III. 1955–6. The two modes of using the accents in chanting, which are attested in the ancient service-books, recall the distinction between the festival and the simpler ferial manner in the Gregorian style of church-music.
2. Pertaining to a holiday.
c. 1500. For to serve a Lord, vi., in Babees Bk. (1868), 372. In feriall tyme serve chese shraped with sugur and sauge-levis.
1549. Banff Council Rec., in Cramond, Ann. Banff (1891), I. 25. Inhebitis all utheris to sell ony flysche, duellaris within the tovne, vpon feriall or haly day, except within thair awin howis.
1860. Mrs. Byrne, Undercurrents Overlooked, I. 75. Admiral Mackau, then Ministre de la Marine, ordered that all works in the navy should be suspended on ferial days.
3. Sc. Law. Ferial day, time: in which the law-courts were closed, and legal process was invalid.
1471. Act Audit. (1839), 16. The last court … was within feryale tyme.
1478. Act Dom. Conc. (1839), 16/1. Thai gert it [a breif of inquest] be serwit in hervist, quhilk is feriale tyme & forbiddin of the law.
1538. St. Papers Hen. VIII., I. 396. Every day in the next weeke shalbe feriall, except Fryday and Saterday.
1637. Let., in Biblioth. Regia, 140. Since … the rising of his Majesties Council in this ferial time.
ǁ 4. = FERAL a.1
1528. An Impeachment of Wolsey, in Furniv., Ball., I. 359.
| And loke where Antropose commyth, Rynnyng a pase, | |
| þe to Areste with hys feryall Mase. |
B. sb. A week day not a feast or festival.
1877. J. D. Chambers, Divine Worship, 84. Sundays as well as Ferials differed in Order, Dignity, and Precedence in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as they do also now.
