Definition of "thanksgiving"

thanksgiving

/ˌθæŋksˈɡɪv.ɪŋ/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural thanksgivings
1. An expression of gratitude.
  Quotations
  The waters grew suddenly lighter, and my spirits rose accordingly. I shouted down to those below that I saw daylight ahead, and a great shout of thanksgiving reverberated through the ship. A moment later we emerged into sunlit water, and immediately I raised the periscope and looked about me upon the strangest landscape I had ever seen.
  1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp.; republished as chapter IV, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I, II, or III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927,
2. A short prayer said at meals; grace, a benediction.
3. A public celebration in acknowledgement of divine favour.
  Quotations
  Hester Earle and Violet Wayne were moving about the aisle with bundles of wheat-ears and streamers of ivy, for the harvest thanksgiving was shortly to be celebrated, while the vicar stood waiting for their directions on the chancel steps with a great handful of crimson gladioli.
  1907, Harold Bindloss, chapter 20, in The Dust of Conflict‎