week

The word “week” means a period of seven consecutive days. In plain terms, a block of seven days, usually running Monday–Sunday or Sunday–Saturday.

“Week” is pronounced week (/wiːk/ in IPA).

Here is “week” used in a sentence: “We'll be on holiday for a week.”

Words with a similar meaning to “week” include hebdomad, sennight and sevennight.

“Week” is a noun.

The word “week” comes from Old English. From Old English wiċe/wucu ("week"), from a Germanic root meaning "sequence" or "turn" — ultimately related to a very old word meaning "to bend or yield".

“Week” is a very common word in modern English, usually learned at around the A1 level.

A week has seven days: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. This seven-day cycle is used almost everywhere in the world and repeats without end, making the week one of the most common units for organizing time — larger than a day but shorter than a month.

A week is the full seven-day period, while the weekend is only the part set aside for rest — usually Saturday and Sunday. The other days, Monday through Friday, are called weekdays or the workweek. So the weekend is one portion of the week, not the whole of it.

It depends on the calendar and culture. In the United States and many other places, calendars show the week starting on Sunday. The international standard, ISO 8601, and much of Europe treat Monday as the first day. Both conventions are widely used, so neither is universally right or wrong.

The seven-day week has ancient roots, traced to Babylonian astronomy and the seven celestial bodies visible to the naked eye, and later reinforced by religious tradition. Unlike the day, month, and year, it matches no natural astronomical cycle, yet it has endured for thousands of years as a global standard.