workday

[wurk-dey]

noun

1. a day on which work is done; working day.

2. the part of a day during which one works.

3. the length of time during a day on which one works.

   a seven-hour workday.

adjective

1. workaday.

workday

/ ˈwɜːkˌdeɪ /

noun

1. the usual US term for working day

adjective

1. another word for workaday

Word History and Origins

Origin of workday¹

1400–50; late Middle English werkday, Old English weorcdæg. See work, day

Example Sentences

The 10-hour workday struggle became the defining labor cause of the early republic.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

In India's tech capital Bengaluru, the morning "rush hour" lasts so long it devours half the workday, throttling productivity in a city often viewed as the poster child of a booming economy.

Read more on Barron's

“He envisioned an office that could be more dynamic and social, that had a greater flexibility to meet the different needs people had throughout their workday.”

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Pranom described enduring increased physical and emotional exhaustion from long workdays serving clients.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

On a typical workday of about five or six hours, she says she can fill three buckets — earning just $9 for her labor.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• banal 
• day-to-day 
• everyday 
• humdrum 
• normal 
• prosaic 
• workaday 

When To Use

What does workday mean?

A workday is any day that you work. Most commonly, workday refers to one of the days in the workweek, the span of (often five) days that are not the weekend and when many people work.The standard workweek is from Monday through Friday, with Saturday and Sunday being considered the weekend, though working schedules vary widely. Many full-time jobs involve a 40-hour workweek consisting of five eight-hour workdays. In this sense, workweek refers to all the time spent working in a week, and a workday refers to the hours spent working in a day.Workday sometimes refers just to the part of the day that you work, as in After the workday, I like to unwind by taking a walk around the lake before I go home for the night. The word workday is sometimes used to distinguish it from other nonwork days during a certain period, as in My vacation is 11 days away—and only eight workdays!The workweek can also be called the working week, and a workday can also be called a working day.Workday is sometimes used as an adjective meaning commonplace, ordinary, or everyday, as in It has average, workday features—nothing special. The variant workaday is more commonly used to mean the same thing.Example: My workday consists of catching up on emails for the first hour or so, and then I’m in meetings for several hours, leaving me an hour or two to get some actual work done.