week

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A period of seven days, especially counted from Monday to Sunday.

   It rained almost every day for a week.

2. 2
   noun

   The days of a week when people usually work, not the weekend.

   They worked a forty-hour week at the factory.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Week comes from Old English and probably goes back to a root meaning “sequence” or “series.” The seven-day week reached Christian tradition through the Hebrew calendar and was adopted by the Romans in AD 321, who would have brought it to Britain.

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *weyg-der. Proto-Germanic *wikǭ Proto-West Germanic *wikā Old English wiċe Middle English wyke English week From Middle English wyke, weke, from Old English wiċe, wucu (“week”), from Proto-West Germanic *wikā, from Proto-Germanic *wikǭ (“sequence; week”), from Proto-Indo-European *weyg-, *weyk- (“to bend, curve”). Related to Proto-Germanic *wīkaną (“to bend, yield, cease”). Cognates Cognate with Scots ouk, oulk (“week”), Yola wick, wik (“week”), North Frisian waag, Week, weg (“week”), Saterland Frisian Wiek, Wíek (“week”), West Frisian wike (“week”), Bavarian…

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary