Quadragesima (i. e. fortieth), a name given to Lent because it lasts forty days, and assigned also to the first Sunday in Lent, the three Sundays which precede it being called respectively Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima.

||Quad`ra*ges"i*ma (?), n. [L., fr. quadragesimus the fortieth, fr. quadraginta forty; akin to quattuor four. See Four.] (Eccl.) The forty days of fast preceding Easter; Lent.

Quadragesima Sunday, the first Sunday in Lent, about forty days before Easter.