working day

¹

noun

1. the amount of time that a worker must work for an agreed daily wage.

2. a day ordinarily given to working (holiday ).

3. the daily period of hours for working.

working-day

²

[wur-king-dey]

adjective

1. workaday; everyday.

working day

noun

1. a day on which work is done, esp for an agreed or stipulated number of hours in return for a salary or wage

2. the part of the day allocated to work

   a seven-hour working day

3. (often plural) commerce any day of the week except Sunday, public holidays, and, in some cases, Saturday

Word History and Origins

Origin of working day¹

First recorded in 1525–35

Origin of working day²

First recorded in 1470–80

When To Use

What does working day mean?

A working day is any day that you work. Most commonly, working day refers to one of the days in the working week, the span of (often five) days that are not the weekend and when many people work.The word workday means the same thing as working day, and workweek means the same thing as working week. Workday and workweek are much more commonly used in the U.S. and Canada.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 working days. In this sense, workweek refers to all the time spent working in a week, and a working day refers to the hours spent working in a day.Working day sometimes refers just to the part of the day that you work, as in After the working day, I like to unwind by taking a walk around the lake before I go home for the night. The word working day is sometimes used to distinguish it from other nonwork days during a certain period, as in My trip is 11 days away—and only eight working days!Example: My working day 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.