A day set as a term (TERM sb. 3); a day appointed for doing something, esp. for payment of money due. (In quot. c. 1375, a final or concluding day; † but terme day, without end, for ever.) ? Obs. exc. as in b, c.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 14040. Quen it com to þe term dai, Þai had noght quar-of for to pai.
c. 1369. Chaucer, Dethe Blaunche, 730. He had broke his terme day To come to hir.
c. 1375. Sc. Leg. Saints, xxxiii. (George), 842. To duel with hyme but terme day.
1470–85. Malory, Arthur, IV. xxviii. 158. Whan it drewe nygh the terme day that syr gawayn syr Marhaus and syre Vwayne shold mete.
b. spec. Each of the Scottish quarter-days, esp. Whitsunday and Martinmas day, at which houses are taken, and servants engaged for the summer or winter half-year: see TERM sb. 3 b.
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., viii. On the very term-day when their ejection should have taken place.
1893. Westm. Gaz., 5 April, 6/3. The understanding … was that the bank which has now stopped might hold out till the 15th of May, which is the Scotch ‘term’ day.
1906. Scot. Rev., 1 Feb., 123/1. Candlemas Day is known to business men in Scotland as one of the quarterly term days.
c. Each of a series of days appointed for taking systematic scientific observations, e.g., of meteorological phenomena. In quots. attrib.
1843. Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc., II. 247. To keep up the term-day observations.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xiv. 153, note. Who bore the brunt of the term-day observations.
