type of modern office chair, 1946, named for U.S. architect and designer Charles Eames (1907-1978). The surname is from Old English eam "uncle," cognate with German Ohm.

as an annual ecological awareness event on April 22, from 1970; the idea for it and the name date from 1969.

English surname, pronounced "Erricker," from Old English eoforwacer "boar-watchman" (1061).

Old English Easterdæg, "Easter day," from Eastre (Northumbrian Eostre), from Proto-Germanic *austron-, "dawn," also possibly the name of a goddess whose feast was celebrated in Eastermonað (the Anglo-Saxon month corresponding with April), from *aust- "east, toward the sunrise" (compare east), from PIE root *aus- (1) "to shine," especially of the dawn.

Bede writes that Anglo-Saxon Christians adopted her name for their Mass of Christ's resurrection. Almost all neighboring languages use a variant of Latin Pascha to name this holiday (see paschal).

Easter egg is attested by 1825, earlier pace egg (1610s). Easter bunny is attested by 1904 in children's lessons; Easter rabbit is by 1888; the paganish customs of Easter seem to have grown popular c. 1900; before that they were limited to German immigrants.

If the children have no garden, they make nests in the wood-shed, barn, or house. They gather colored flowers for the rabbit to eat, that it may lay colored eggs. If there be a garden, the eggs are hidden singly in the green grass, box-wood, or elsewhere. On Easter Sunday morning they whistle for the rabbit, and the children imagine that they see him jump the fence. After church, on Easter Sunday morning, they hunt the eggs, and in the afternoon the boys go out in the meadows and crack eggs or play with them like marbles. Or sometimes children are invited to a neighbor's to hunt eggs. [Phebe Earle Gibbons, "Pennsylvania Dutch," Philadelphia, 1882]

so called because it was discovered by Dutch navigator Jakob Roggeveen on April 2, 1722, which was Easter Monday. It earlier had been visited by English pirate Edward Davis (1695), but he neglected to name it. The native Polynesian name is Mata-kite-ran "Eyes that Watch the Stars."

masc. proper name, from Hebrew ebhen ezar "stone of help," from ebhen "stone" + ezer "help." Sometimes also the name of a Protestant chapel or meeting house, from name of a stone raised by Samuel to commemorate a divinely aided victory over the Philistines at Mizpeh (I Samuel vii.12).

c. 1300, name given to one of the Old Testament books, traditionally ascribed to Solomon, from Greek ekklesiastes (see ecclesiastic), to render Hebrew qoheleth "one who addresses an assembly," from qahal "assembly." The title is technically the designation of the speaker, but that word throughout is usually rendered into English as "The Preacher" (which Klein calls "erroneous," as the modern meaning of preacher is not synonymous with the Greek word).

bacteria inhabiting the gut of man and animals, by 1921, short for Escherichia coli (1911), named for German physician Theodor Escherich (1857-1911) with Latin genitive of colon "colon" (see colon (n.2)).

from the Spanish form of equator (which runs through it). Before 1830 the region bore the name of its chief city, Quito, which is from the name of a now-extinct native people, of unknown meaning. Related: Ecuadorian; Ecuadorean.

1836, type of cheese named for Edam, village in Holland where it was originally made. The place name is literally "the dam on the River Ye," which flows into the Ijsselmeer there, and the river name is literally "river" (see ea).