What does halloween mean?

uh….. idk.lol the olden days, passed down traditions, etc.?

Here’s the answer for you.

Halloween, celebrated each year on October 31, is a mix of ancient Celtic practices, Catholic and Roman religious rituals and European folk traditions that blended together over time to create the holiday we know today. Straddling the line between fall and winter, plenty and paucity and life and death, Halloween is a time of celebration and superstition. Halloween has long been thought of as a day when the dead can return to the earth, and ancient Celts would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off these roaming ghosts. The Celtic holiday of Samhain, the Catholic Hallowmas period of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day and the Roman festival of Feralia all influenced the modern holiday of Halloween. In the 19th century, Halloween began to lose its religious connotation, becoming a more secular community-based children’s holiday. Although the superstitions and beliefs surrounding Halloween may have evolved over the years, as the days grow shorter and the nights get colder, people can still look forward to parades, costumes and sweet treats to usher in the winter season.

The name Halloween means “All Hallows Eve”

Thanks! :D

The orginal name being Smahain (pronounced Sow-een or Sow-veen depending). For Celtics, believing everything came from the underworld(when plants died they withered & went underground hence their conclusion, supposedly). They believed at this time the barriers between the living world and underword were at their thinnets. They dressed up as goals, skeletons, etc, carved jack-o-lanterns to ward off malicious spirits, also lit bonfires to help ward of malevoents spirits and warm the good before their decent back to the underworld. It’s also believed to be Pam’s birthday(in modern belief he’s believed to be spirit of the forest, though orginaly, supposedly, he was God of corn). It’s also believed that the Greeks held this day as being Prsaphone’s decent to the underworld or Hadies(hence the season change if you know the myth of Persaphone).

When the Romans conquered the Celtics they added their own twists to the holiday such as bobbing for apples, drinking cidaer, making center pecies out of apples and nuts, etc.
When Christianity sought converts, in 835 Pope Gregory IV moved the celebration for all the martyrs (later all saints) from May 13 to November. The night before became known as All Hallow’s Even or “holy evening.”  
As for "treak or treat"ing, I believe it spawned from "souling". Poor people and children would dress up and sing and say prayers for the dead in return for food. Not quite sure how it became trick or treating though. I'll look it up and post more another time, getting a bit tired right now, lol.

Thanks :)