A day fixed by law on which normal work is suspended — though what closes varies.
A public holiday is a dated occasion on which a jurisdiction suspends normal working, fixed by statute, decree or proclamation. It is the most familiar term here and the least precise, because what a public holiday actually closes differs everywhere.
In some places it closes almost everything. In others it binds the public sector and leaves private employers to choose. In others again it is a paid day whose observance is negotiated in a collective agreement rather than fixed in law.
The corpus records what a day does rather than what it is called, because the label travels badly and the effect does not. A day that closes banks and nothing else is a different operational fact from one that closes the whole economy, whatever either is named locally.
| Jurisdiction | Meaning |
|---|---|
| IE | The governing statutory term, under the Organisation of Working Time Act 1997. |
| GB | Used colloquially; the statutory term is bank holiday. |
| IN | Split into gazetted and restricted holidays, the second of which an employee elects. |
A bank holiday closes banks specifically. A public holiday need not, and in several jurisdictions does not.
An observance is marked. A public holiday suspends work. Many observances close nothing at all.
A public holiday is dated and annual. A rest day recurs every week.
See also bank holiday · observance · rest day · substitution · optional holiday
We hold this as operational_status: closed_general. See what we hold.