Weekend

How to spell weekend

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce weekend

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does weekend mean?

1. nounThe period of Saturday and Sunday, when most people are not at work.
2. verbTo spend the weekend somewhere, typically away from home.

Weekend in a sentence

• noun

  They drove to the coast for a relaxing weekend.

• verb

  The couple like to weekend in the mountains during autumn.

• noun

  The office is closed every weekend and reopens on Monday.

• verb

  Wealthy families would often weekend at their country estate.

Where does weekend come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent English compound, joining the native word 'week' to the equally native word 'end'. 'Week' descends from Old English 'wicu' or 'wucu', which referred to the recurring cycle of seven days, while 'end' comes from Old English 'ende', meaning the final part or boundary of something. The combined term is surprisingly modern: it appears in print only from the late 1870s, growing out of the northern English custom of leaving work on Saturday afternoon and not returning until Monday. As the Saturday-and-Sunday break spread through industrial society, the word spread with it, and the spelling has always simply stitched the two parts together with no joining letter. Because both halves are old, plain English words, the only spelling point to remember is the double 'e' in 'week' carried straight into the compound.

How the word is built

• week (the seven-day cycle)
• end (final part)