Sabbat

One of the eight seasonal festivals of the Wheel of the Year in Wiccan and broader modern pagan practice: the solar quarter days (winter solstice, spring equinox, summer solstice, autumn equinox) and the four cross-quarter festivals (Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh, Samhain). Distinct from the monthly lunar esbat. The term derives from the medieval European witch-trial conception of the witches’ sabbath and was adopted by Gerald Gardner and Doreen Valiente in the 1950s as the structuring vocabulary of the Wiccan ritual year.