Day
nounA period of twenty-four hours, or the time between sunrise and sunset.
How to spell day
3 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce day
What does day mean?
- nounA period of twenty-four hours, or the time between sunrise and sunset.
Day in a sentence
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The meeting is scheduled for the first day of the month.
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She spent the whole day packing boxes for the move.
Where does day come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
The word comes from Old English dæg, the native Anglo-Saxon term for the period of daylight and, more broadly, the twenty-four hour span. It traces back to a common Germanic ancestor, seen in the Old High German tag and the modern German Tag, all carrying the sense of the time when the sun is up. Despite the visual similarity, it is not related to the Latin dies, meaning 'day', which gives us words like 'diary' and 'diurnal'; the resemblance is a coincidence of sound rather than shared ancestry. The spelling settled into its modern three-letter form over the medieval period as the Old English -g softened into a glide and was written with a 'y'. Because it is one of the oldest and most frequent words in the language, the spelling is fixed and entirely regular, making it among the easiest words an adult will ever write.
How the word is built
- day (single root, from Old English dæg meaning 'day'; no prefix or suffix)
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