Weekdays

How to spell weekdays

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce weekdays

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does weekdays mean?

1. nounThe days of the week from Monday to Friday, excluding the weekend.

Weekdays in a sentence

• The gym is far quieter on weekdays than at the weekend.

• Parking near the office costs more on weekdays when commuters fill the spaces.

Where does weekdays come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a compound of two very old native English words. The first element, 'week', descends from the Old English 'wicu' or 'wucu', which named the recurring seven-day cycle and traces back to a Germanic root linked to the idea of turning or succession, as one period yields to the next. The second element, 'day', comes from the Old English 'dæg', a word shared across the Germanic languages for the period of daylight or a single rotation of light and dark. Joined together, 'weekday' came to mean any day of the week other than the weekend, and the plural simply adds the native '-s' ending. Because every part of the word is plain Anglo-Saxon stock, the spelling is wholly regular: 'week' keeps its double 'e', and 'days' takes the ordinary plural, with no silent letters or borrowed quirks to trip a writer.

How the word is built

• week (Old English wicu: a seven-day cycle)
• day (Old English dæg)
• -s (plural)