weekday

Meanings

1. 1nouncountable

   Any day from Monday to Friday, the usual days for work or school.

   Grammar: Countable: on weekdays, every weekday; it can also come before a noun: weekday traffic.

   Patterns

   • on a weekday
   • on weekdays

   The library is open every weekday from nine until six.

   On a weekday I usually leave the house before seven.

   Trains are busier on a weekday than on Sunday.

2. 2nouncountableregional

   Any day of the week other than Sunday, or other than the rest days used in a particular place or tradition.

   Grammar: In some traditions Saturday counts as a weekday, so check local usage.

   In some shops, Saturday is treated as an ordinary weekday.

   The temple holds a short service every weekday evening.

   Some religious calendars separate the Sabbath from the other weekdays.

Word forms

Common combinations

on weekdays

The café is closed on weekdays.

weekday morning

A weekday morning at the station is crowded with commuters.

weekday evening

Classes run on weekday evenings.

weekday schedule

The bus follows a different weekday schedule.

ordinary weekday

It was just an ordinary weekday until the phone rang.

Synonyms and how they differ

working day

Working day stresses that the day is spent at work, while weekday simply names the day by its place in the calendar.

business day

Business day is used in banking and law and excludes public holidays, whereas weekday includes them.

school day

School day only applies to days when classes take place, so it can exclude weekdays during vacations.

Opposites

Word family

week noun

a period of seven days

weekly adjective

happening once a week

weekend noun

Saturday and Sunday

weekdays adverb

on weekdays, used in American English

Commonly confused: weekday or weekend?

Practice

Make it your own

Write a sentence using “weekday”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

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