day

See also: Appendix:Variations of "day", Day, dày, dây, dạy, and dậy

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Middle English day, from Old English dæġ (“day”), from Proto-Germanic *dagaz (“day”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰogʷʰ-o-s, from *dʰegʷʰ- (“to burn”).

Cognate with Saterland Frisian Dai (“day”), West Frisian dei (“day”), Dutch dag (“day”), German Low German Dag (“day”), Alemannic German Däi (“day”), German Tag (“day”), Swedish, Norwegian and Danish dag (“day”), Icelandic dagur (“day”). Cognate also with Albanian djeg (“to burn”), Lithuanian degti (“to burn”), Tocharian A tsäk-, Russian жечь (žečʹ, “to burn”) from *degti, дёготь (djógotʹ, “tar, pitch”), Sanskrit दाह (dāhá, “heat”), दहति (dáhati, “to burn”), Latin foveō (“to warm, keep warm, incubate”).

Latin diēs is a false cognate; it derives from Proto-Indo-European *dyew- (“to shine”).

Pronunciation
  • enPR: dā, IPA(key): /deɪ/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Audio (UK)(file)
  • Audio(file)
  • Rhymes: -eɪ
  • Homophone: dey

Noun

day (plural days)

  1. Any period of 24 hours.
    I've been here for two days and a bit.
  2. A period from midnight to the following midnight.
    The day begins at midnight.
  3. (astronomy) Rotational period of a planet (especially Earth).
    A day on Mars is slightly over 24 hours.
  4. The part of a day period which one spends at one’s job, school, etc.
    I worked two days last week.
    • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 7, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:
      “ […] if you call my duds a ‘livery’ again there'll be trouble. It's bad enough to go around togged out like a life saver on a drill day, but I can stand that 'cause I'm paid for it. What I won't stand is to have them togs called a livery. […]”
  5. Part of a day period between sunrise and sunset where one enjoys daylight; daytime.
    day and night;  I work at night and sleep during the day.
    • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 8, in The Celebrity:
      The day was cool and snappy for August, and the Rise all green with a lavish nature. Now we plunged into a deep shade with the boughs lacing each other overhead, and crossed dainty, rustic bridges over the cold trout-streams, […].
    Antonym: night
  6. A specified time or period; time, considered with reference to the existence or prominence of a person or thing; age; time.
    Every dog has its day.
    • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 639762314, page 0108:
      This new-comer was a man who in any company would have seemed striking. […] Indeed, all his features were in large mold, like the man himself, as though he had come from a day when skin garments made the proper garb of men.
    • 1945 August 17, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 6, in Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, London: Secker & Warburg, OCLC 3655473:
      If they had no more food than they had had in Jones's day, at least they did not have less.
    • 2011, Kat Martin, 'A Song for My Mother'‎[200], Vanguard Press, →ISBN:
      In his senior year, he had run across an old '66 Chevy Super Sport headed for the junkyard, bought it for a song, and overhauled it with his dad's help, turning it into the big red muscle car it was back in its day.
  7. A period of contention of a day or less.
    The day belonged to the Allies.
  8. (meteorology) A 24-hour period beginning at 6am or sunrise.
    Your 8am forecast: The high for the day will be 30 and the low, before dawn, will be 10.

Hypernyms
Hypernyms of day

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Descendants
  • Sranan Tongo: dei

Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked

References

Verb

day (third-person singular simple present days, present participle daying, simple past and past participle dayed)

  1. (rare, intransitive) To spend a day (in a place).
    • 2008, Richard F. Burton, Arabian Nights, in 16 volumes, page 233:
      When I nighted and dayed in Damascus town, […]

See also

Anagrams

Cebuano

Etymology

Initial clipping of inday.

Pronunciation
  • (General Cebuano) IPA(key): /ˈd̪aɪ/
  • Rhymes: -aɪ
  • Hyphenation: day

Noun

day

  1. (colloquial) A familiar address to a girl.
  2. A familiar address to a daughter.

Kalasha

Verb

day

  1. I am

Middle English

Alternative forms

Etymology 1

From Old English dæġ, from Proto-Germanic *dagaz.

Pronunciation
  • (Early ME) IPA(key): /daj/, /dɛj/
  • IPA(key): /dɛi̯/

Noun

day (plural dayes or days or dawes)

  1. day (composed of 24 hours)
  2. day (as opposed to night)
    • a. 1382, John Wycliffe, “Genesis 1:5”, in Wycliffe's Bible:
      and he clepide the liȝt, dai, and the derkneſſis, nyȝt. And the euentid and morwetid was maad, o daie.
      And he called light "day" and the darkness "night". And the evening and morning was made; one day.
  3. daylight, sunlight
  4. epoch, age, period
  5. A certain day.
Antonyms
Descendants
References

Etymology 2

Pronoun

day

  1. Alternative form of þei

References

Scots

Etymology

From Middle English day, from Old English dæġ.

Noun

day (plural days)

  1. day
  2. (in the definite singular) today
    A’m sorry, A’ve no seen Angus the day.
    I’m sorry, I haven’t seen Angus today.
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