Half-holiday

1784, obituary of Daniel Wray in The Gentleman’s Magazine, Volume 54, Part 1, p. 72, His memory is still reflected on with a degree of pleasure by some […] who can revive the long-buried ideas of what passed at that school about the year 1716 or 17; when Sir Daniel was always ready, if any body was wanted, to beg a half-holiday on Tuesday afternoons.

Source: wiktionary

Mr. Pecksniff and Mr. Jinkins came home to dinner, arm-in-arm; for the latter gentleman had made half-holiday, on purpose; thus gaining an immense advantage over the youngest gentleman and the rest, whose time, as it perversely chanced, was all bespoke, until the evening.

Source: wiktionary

Bradly was late getting into town—he had forgotten that Saturday was a half-holiday. But he was in time to lay in stores at Cooley’s, and call at the butcher’s and greengrocer’s while the parcels were being made up.

Source: wiktionary

A rumor would start that an extra half-holiday was going to be given (which happened fairly frequently during the war, whenever an old boy had been decorated with a D.S.O. or an M.C. A V.C. ranked as a whole holiday, but this only happened twice).

Source: wiktionary