Wednesdays

How to spell wednesdays

10 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce wednesdays

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does wednesdays mean?

1. nounThe recurring fourth days of the week, falling between Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Wednesdays in a sentence

• The team holds its budget reviews on wednesdays before lunch.

• The gym is quietest on wednesdays and Sundays.

Where does wednesdays come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word comes from the Old English Wodnesdaeg, literally 'Woden's day', the day dedicated to Woden, the chief Anglo-Saxon god who corresponds to the Norse Odin. The name was a translation of the Latin dies Mercurii, 'day of Mercury', because the Romans linked Woden with the god Mercury, and that Latin pattern still survives in the French mercredi. The troublesome silent 'd' in the modern spelling is a fossil of that older Wodnes form: we have kept the written consonant long after the pronunciation collapsed to roughly 'wenz-day'. The plural simply adds an -s to mark the recurring weekday. Knowing that the hidden letters spell out 'Woden's day' is the best memory hook, since the spelling preserves a Saxon god the speech has forgotten.

How the word is built

• Wednes- (from Old English Wodnes, the possessive of the god Woden)
• -day
• -s (plural)