Saturday

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English saterday,^[2][3] inherited from Old English sæterdæg, also sæterndæg and sæternesdæg,^[4][2][5][6] literally "day of Saturn".^[4][7] Its first part is Sætern (“Saturn”), with the genitive Sæternes in the fuller form, borrowed from Latin Sāturnus,^[8][4] and its second part is dæg (“day”).^[8][4] The compound is a partial translation of Sāturnī diēs (“Saturn's day”),^{[4][9][6][10]} shared with Old Frisian sāterdei, Middle Dutch saterdach, Middle Low German sāterdach and Dutch zaterdag.^[11][2][12] Merriam-Webster traces them all to a prehistoric West Germanic compound.^[2] Barnhart, Klein and Etymonline take the Latin name as a translation of Ancient Greek Κρονοῦ ἡμέρα (Kronoû hēméra, “day of Cronus”),^[8][10][4] but the OED thinks the Greek phrase was probably modelled on the Latin.^[11] The Latin name may be of Etruscan origin.^[7][4] Most Germanic day names replaced the Roman god with a comparable Germanic one, but here the Roman name was kept,^[11] perhaps for lack of a match to Saturn in the northern pantheon.^[4] The same Latin name gave Irish dé Sathairn and Welsh dydd Sadwrn.^[11] Elsewhere other names took hold: Old Norse laugardagr (“bath day”), with Danish lørdag and Swedish lördag,^[4] and names from the word for the Sabbath, such as German Samstag, French samedi, Polish sobota and Hungarian szombat.^[4][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The day between Friday and Sunday: in the Old English translation of Bede's Ecclesiastical History, as Æghwylce Sæternes dæge.^[11] Barnhart dates the word to before 899.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The meaning has stayed fixed, while the day's place in the week has shifted: it was traditionally counted as the seventh day,^[11][2] and Johnson (1755) called it the last day of the week,^[13] but it is now often considered the sixth, forming the weekend together with Sunday.^[11] In early use the word frequently rendered Latin sabbatum,^[11] and the Middle English Dictionary glosses it also as the Sabbath;^[3] Collins still notes it as the Jewish Sabbath.^[14] Johnson reported Verstegan's derivation from a Saxon idol, and thought Saturn more probable.^[13] Early Middle English had forms such as Sætterdæi in Laȝamon and Saterrdaȝȝ in the Ormulum;^[5] the spelling Saturday appears about 1300,^[8] and Chaucer used both saterday and saturday.^[15] The word was used adverbially from Old English on, a use now chiefly North American,^[11] and the plural Saturdays, on each Saturday, is recorded from about 1400, in Piers Plowman.^[11] Saturday night has been figurative of revelry and drunkenness since at least 1847,^[4] and in the English dialects of Warwickshire, Oxfordshire and Surrey a Saturday night was also the week's pay.^[16][17] Saturday-to-Monday, a period from one to the other, was used of excursion tickets,^[12] until, as Weekley says, week-end replaced it.^[18]

Timeline

• Old English – the day after Friday,^[11] recorded before 899 according to Barnhart.^[8]
• Old English – adverb, on Saturday.^[11]
• probably before 1200 – the Middle English form Sætterdæi.^[8]
• c. 1300 – the spelling Saturday.^[8]
• c. 1400 – Saturdays, on each Saturday.^[11]
• mid 16th century – attributive use, of Saturday.^[12]
• 1847 – Saturday night, figurative of revelry.^[4]
• 1896 – Saturday-night, a week's wages.^[17]
• 1976 – Saturday-night special, a cheap handgun of low calibre.^[4] Saturday-night pistol is from 1929.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The day of the week between Friday and Sunday, traditionally the seventh and now often counted as the sixth: The market opens every Saturday.^[11][14][2]

Adverb

1. On Saturday; next or last Saturday; in the plural Saturdays, each Saturday: We leave Saturday.^[11][12]

Word family

• Saturday-night special

Related words

• Saturn
• saturnine
• saturnalia
• day

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
17. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
18. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray