subs. phr. (old school).—1. The Monday on which, after holidays, school reopens. An early example of the usage is found in the fact that Easter Monday was so called, from the severity of that day in 1360, when many of Edward III.’s soldiers, then before Paris, died from the cold. This is Stowe’s explanation, Annales, 264, but another account is given by Fordun. The term is found in Shakespeare. See also Stanihurst’s Description of Ireland, 21; Sharp’s Chron. Mirab. 9. BLACK FRIDAY was used of the day on which Overend, Gurney & Co., suspended payment—10 May, 1886: cf. BLUE MONDAY.
1740. R. NORTH, Examen, 505. The darkness was greater than under the great solar eclipse that denominated BLACK MONDAY.
1750. FIELDING, Tom Jones, VIII., xi. She now hated my sight, and made home so disagreeable to me, that what is called by school-boys BLACK MONDAY was to me the whitest in the whole year.
1882. T. A. GUTHRIE (‘F. Anstey’), Vice Versâ, i. There comes a time when the days are grudgingly counted to a BLACKER MONDAY than ever makes a schoolboy’s heart quake within him.
2. (common).—The Monday on which the death penalty was carried out; hangings were generally arranged to fall on the day in question.
