weekday
Americannoun
-
weekdays
plural
adjective
noun
Usage
What is a weekday? A weekday is any day that is not a weekend day. Since the weekend is considered to consist of Saturday and Sunday, the weekdays are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. (Even though Friday evening is sometimes considered the start of the weekend, Friday is still considered a weekday.)The evenings of weekdays are called weeknights. The word week most commonly refers to any period of seven consecutive days, or to the seven-day period on the calendar that begins on Sunday and ends on Saturday. However, in weekday and weeknight, it refers to the five-day period that’s often considered the workweek or school week. The standard workweek is from Monday through Friday, though working schedules vary widely. Days of the workweek can be called workdays. Weekdays are usually (but not always) workdays or school days. For this reason, terms like weekday and weeknight are typically used—instead of just saying day or night—to distinguish them from the days and nights on the weekend. The word weekdays can be used as an adverb meaning on weekdays—Monday through Friday. The word weekends can be used as an adverb in the same way, as in We’re open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., but we’re closed weekends. Example: I don’t usually like to be out so late on a weekday, but I couldn’t miss this!
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of weekday
before 900; Middle English; Old English wicdæg. See week, day
Explanation
If it's not Saturday or Sunday, today is a weekday. Better get to bed early tonight — tomorrow's another weekday and you've got school! You can categorize every day of the week as either a weekday or the weekend. Monday through Friday are weekdays, which for most people means work or school. The word weekday can also be used as an adjective, to describe something that happens on one of these days, like your weekday routine or the weekday traffic on your commute. This word stems from the Old English wicudæge, and it originally meant "any day but Sunday."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
In the basement of St. Boniface Church in Anaheim on weekday afternoons and weekend mornings in the mid-1990s, my sister, about 20 other teenagers and I learned about the tenets of our faith.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
On a recent weekday, about two dozen foreign attendees worked on laptops in the Network School’s cafe, which sold health supplements including creatine and collagen peptides.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 1, 2026
Even relatively small differences between weekday and weekend schedules may create what researchers often call social jet lag.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 31, 2026
We know baking a pie from scratch is a tall order for a weekday, but save this recipe for when you have more time this weekend.
From Slate ● Jul. 14, 2026
She obviously was enjoying the unusual pleasure of having him home on a weekday morning.
From "Jacob Have I Loved" by Katherine Paterson
Listen to Matt Chorley live from Westminster, weekdays from 14:00 on BBC Radio 5 Live.
From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026
The licence would allow the new location to remain open and sell alcohol until 23:30 BST on weekdays and midnight at weekends.
From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026
“General Hospital,” which airs weekdays on ABC and streams on Hulu, is in its 64th year and stands as the longest-running American soap opera currently in production.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2026
Overall, weekend ratings were 0.04 of a star lower, on a scale of one to five stars, than ones on the weekdays.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
I have been trying to interpret them as genuine weekends, as if, after spending the weekdays on futile and largely cosmetic labor, I had decided to volunteer to do something useful for a change.
From "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
