Origins of the word day

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A day is the time period of a full rotation of the Earth with respect to the Sun. On average, this is 24 hours, 1440 minutes, or 86,400 seconds. In everyday life, the word «day» often refers to a solar day, which is the length between two solar noons or times the Sun reaches the highest point. The word «day» may also refer to daytime, a time period when the location receives direct and indirect sunlight. On Earth, as a location passes through its day, it experiences morning, noon, afternoon, evening, and night. The effect of a day is vital to many life processes, which is called the circadian rhythm.

A collection of sequential days is organized into calendars as dates, almost always into weeks, months and years. Most calendars’ arrangement of dates use either or both the Sun with its four seasons (solar calendar) or the Moon’s phasing (lunar calendar). The start of a day is commonly accepted as roughly the time of the middle of the night or midnight, written as 00:00 or 12:00 am in 24- or 12-hour clocks, respectively. Because the time of midnight varies between locations, time zones are set up to facilitate the use of a uniform standard time. Midnight is not the only convention used to determine the start of a new day. Other defining moments have been used throughout history, and some are used even today, such as with the Jewish religious calendar, which counts days from sunset to sunset, so the Jewish Sabbath begins at sundown on Friday. Astronomers also have a convention where their day begins at high noon. This way, all of their observations throughout a single night are recorded as happening on the same day. This method removes ambiguity of a particular observation happening on a calendar day, eliminating the need to further determine which night it happened on. Because when using midnight as the start of day, each calendar day is associated with two separate night periods.

In specific applications, the definition of a day is slightly modified, such as in the SI day (exactly 86,400 seconds) used for computers and standards keeping, local mean time accounting of the Earth’s natural fluctuation of a solar day, and stellar day and sidereal day (using the celestial sphere) used for astronomy. In most countries outside of the tropics, daylight saving time is practiced, and each year there will be one 23-hour civil day and one 25-hour civil day. Due to slight variations in the rotation of the Earth, there are rare times when a leap second will get inserted at the end of a UTC day, and so while almost all days have a duration of 86,400 seconds, there are these exceptional cases of a day with 86,401 seconds (in the half-century spanning 1972 through 2022, there have been a total of 27 leap seconds that have been inserted, so roughly once every other year).

Etymology[edit]

The term comes from the Old English term dæġ (/dæj/), with its cognates such as dagur in Icelandic, Tag in German, and dag in Norwegian, Danish, Swedish and Dutch – all stemming from a Proto-Germanic root *dagaz.^[1] As of October 17, 2015, day is the 205th most common word in US English,^[2] and the 210th most common in UK English.^[2]

Definitions[edit]

Apparent and mean solar day[edit]

Several definitions of this universal human concept are used according to context, need and convenience. Besides the day of 24 hours (86,400 seconds), the word day is used for several different spans of time based on the rotation of the Earth around its axis. An important one is the solar day, defined as the time it takes for the Sun to return to its culmination point (its highest point in the sky). Because celestial orbits are not perfectly circular, and thus objects travel at different speeds at various positions in their orbit, a solar day is not the same length of time throughout the orbital year. Because the Earth moves along an eccentric orbit around the Sun while the Earth spins on an inclined axis, this period can be up to 7.9 seconds more than (or less than) 24 hours. In recent decades, the average length of a solar day on Earth has been about 86,400.002 seconds^[3] (24.000 000 6 hours) and there are currently about 365.2421875 solar days in one mean tropical year.

Ancient custom has a new day start at either the rising or setting of the Sun on the local horizon (Italian reckoning, for example, being 24 hours from sunset, oldstyle).^[4] The exact moment of, and the interval between, two sunrises or sunsets depends on the geographical position (longitude and latitude, as well as altitude), and the time of year (as indicated by ancient hemispherical sundials).

A more constant day can be defined by the Sun passing through the local meridian, which happens at local noon (upper culmination) or midnight (lower culmination). The exact moment is dependent on the geographical longitude, and to a lesser extent on the time of the year. The length of such a day is nearly constant (24 hours ± 30 seconds). This is the time as indicated by modern sundials.

A further improvement defines a fictitious mean Sun that moves with constant speed along the celestial equator; the speed is the same as the average speed of the real Sun, but this removes the variation over a year as the Earth moves along its orbit around the Sun (due to both its velocity and its axial tilt).

In terms of Earth’s rotation, the average day length is about 360.9856°. A day lasts for more than 360° of rotation because of the Earth’s revolution around the Sun. With a full year being slightly more than 360 days, the Earth’s daily orbit around the Sun is slightly less than 1°, so the day is slightly less than 361° of rotation.

Elsewhere in the Solar System or other parts of the universe, a day is a full rotation of other large astronomical objects with respect to its star.^[5]

Civil day[edit]

For civil purposes, a common clock time is typically defined for an entire region based on the local mean solar time at a central meridian. Such time zones began to be adopted about the middle of the 19th century when railroads with regularly occurring schedules came into use, with most major countries having adopted them by 1929. As of 2015, throughout the world, 40 such zones are now in use: the central zone, from which all others are defined as offsets, is known as UTC±00, which uses Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

The most common convention starts the civil day at midnight: this is near the time of the lower culmination of the Sun on the central meridian of the time zone. Such a day may be referred to as a calendar day.

A day is commonly divided into 24 hours of 60 minutes, with each minute composed of 60 seconds.

Sidereal day[edit]

A sidereal day or stellar day is the span of time it takes for the Earth to make one entire rotation^[6] with respect to the celestial background or a distant star (assumed to be fixed).^[7] Measuring a day as such is used in astronomy.^[7] A sidereal day is about 4 minutes less than a solar day of 24 hours (23 hours 56 minutes and 4.09 seconds), or 0.99726968 of a solar day of 24 hours.^[8] There are about 366.2422 stellar days in one mean tropical year (one stellar day more than the number of solar days).^[9]

Besides a stellar day on Earth, other bodies in the Solar System have day times, the durations of these being:^[10][11]

Name	Daylength (hours)
Mercury	4222.6
Venus	2802
Earth’s Moon	708.7
Mars	24.7
Ceres	9[12]–9.1[13]
Jupiter	9.9
Saturn	10.7
Uranus	17.2
Neptune	16.1
Pluto	153.3

In the International System of Units[edit]

In the International System of Units (SI), a day not an official unit, but is accepted for use with SI.^[14] A day, with symbol d, is defined using SI units as 86,400 seconds; the second is the base unit of time in SI units. In 1967–68, during the 13th CGPM (Resolution 1),^[15] the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) redefined a second as «… the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom.»^[16] This makes the SI-based day last exactly 794,243,384,928,000 of those periods.

In decimal and metric time[edit]

Various decimal or metric time proposals have been made, but do not redefine the day, and use the day or sidereal day as a base unit. Metric time uses metric prefixes to keep time. It uses the day as the base unit, and smaller units being fractions of a day: a metric hour (deci) is 1⁄10 of a day; a metric minute (milli) is 1⁄1000 of a day; etc.^[17] Similarly, in decimal time, the length of a day is static to normal time. A day is also split into 10 hours, and 10 days comprise a décade – the equivalent to a week. 3 décades make a month.^[18]: 35 Various decimal time proposals which do not redefine the day: Henri de Sarrauton’s proposal kept days, and subdivided hours into 100 minutes;^[18]: 42 in Mendizábal y Tamborel’s proposal, the sidereal day was the basic unit, with subdivisions made upon it;^{[18]: 42–43} and Rey-Pailhade’s proposal divided the day 100 cés.^[18]: 42

Other definitions[edit]

The word refers to various similarly defined ideas, such as:

Full day

• 24 hours (exactly) (a nychthemeron)
• A day counting approximation, for example «See you in three days.» or «the following day»
• The full day covering both the dark and light periods, beginning from the start of the dark period or from a point near the middle of the dark period
• A full dark and light period, sometimes called a nychthemeron in English, from the Greek for night-day;^[19] or more colloquially the term 24 hours. In other languages, 24 hours is also often used. Other languages also have a separate word for a full day.
• Part of a date: the day of the year (doy) in ordinal dates, day of the month (dom) in calendar dates or day of the week (dow) in week dates.
• Time regularly spend at paid work on a single work day, cf. man-day and workweek.

Daytime

• The period of light when the Sun is above the local horizon (that is, the time period from sunrise to sunset)
• The time period from 06:00–18:00 (6:00 am – 6:00 pm) or 21:00 (9:00 pm) or another fixed clock period overlapping or offset from other time periods such as «morning», «evening», or «night».
• The time period from first-light «dawn» to last-light «dusk».

Other

• A specific period of the day, which may vary by context, such as «the school day» or «the work day».

Variations in length[edit]

Mainly due to tidal deceleration – the Moon’s gravitational pull slowing down the Earth’s rotation – the Earth’s rotational period is slowing.^[20] Because of the way the second is defined, the mean length of a solar day is now about 86,400.002 seconds, and is increasing by about 2 milliseconds per century.^[21]

Since the rotation rate of the Earth is slowing, the length of a SI second fell out of sync with a second derived from the rotational period of the earth.^[20] This arose the need for leap seconds, which insert extra seconds into Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).^[20] Although typically 86,400 SI seconds in duration, a civil day can be either 86,401 or 86,399 SI seconds long on such a day. Other than the two-millisecond variation from tidal deceleration, other factors minutely affect the day’s length, which creates irregularity in the placement of leap seconds.^[22] Leap seconds are announced in advance by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS), which measures the Earth’s rotation and determines whether a leap second is necessary.

Geological day lengths[edit]

Discovered by paleontologist John W. Wells, the day lengths of geological periods have been estimated by measuring sedimentation rings in coral fossils,^[23][21] due to some biological systems being affected by the tide.^[21] The length of a day at the Earth’s formation is estimated at 6 hours.^[21] Arbab I. Arbab plotted day lengths over time and found a curved line.^[21] Arbab attributed this to the change of water volume present affecting Earth’s rotation.^[21]

Date	Geological period	Number of days per year[23]	Duration of the day
Present	Current	365	24 hours
−100 million years	Cretaceous	380	23 hours and 20 minutes
−200 million years	Triassic	390	22 hours and 40 minutes
−300 million years	Carboniferous	400	22 hours
−400 million years	Devonian	410	21 hours and 20 minutes
−500 million years	Cambrian	425	20 hours and 40 minutes

Boundaries[edit]

For most diurnal animals, the day naturally begins at dawn and ends at sunset. Humans, with their cultural norms and scientific knowledge, have employed several different conceptions of the day’s boundaries. In the Hebrew Bible, Genesis 1:5 defines a day in terms of «evening» and «morning» before recounting the creation of a sun to illuminate it: «And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.» Common convention among the ancient Romans,^[24] ancient Chinese^[25] and in modern times is for the civil day to begin at midnight, i.e. 00:00, and to last a full 24 hours until 24:00 (i.e. 00:00 of the next day).
In ancient Egypt the day was reckoned from sunrise to sunrise. The Jewish day begins at either sunset or nightfall (when three second-magnitude stars appear).

Medieval Europe also followed this tradition, known as Florentine reckoning: in this system, a reference like «two hours into the day» meant two hours after sunset and thus times during the evening need to be shifted back one calendar day in modern reckoning.^{[citation needed]} Days such as Christmas Eve, Halloween, and the Eve of Saint Agnes are remnants of the older pattern when holidays began during the prior evening. Prior to 1926, Turkey had two time systems: Turkish (counting the hours from sunset) and French (counting the hours from midnight).

Parts[edit]

Humans have divided the day in rough periods, which can have cultural implications, and other effects on humans’ biological processes. The parts of the day do not have set times; they can vary by lifestyle or hours of daylight in a given place.^[26]

Daytime[edit]

A day, in the sense of daytime that is distinguished from night time, is commonly defined as the period during which sunlight directly reaches the ground, assuming that there are no local obstacles. The length of daytime averages slightly more than half of the 24-hour day. Two effects make daytime on average longer than nights. The Sun is not a point, but has an apparent size of about 32 minutes of arc. Additionally, the atmosphere refracts sunlight in such a way that some of it reaches the ground even when the Sun is below the horizon by about 34 minutes of arc. So the first light reaches the ground when the centre of the Sun is still below the horizon by about 50 minutes of arc.^[27] Thus, daytime is on average around 7 minutes longer than 12 hours.^[28]

Daytime is further distinguished into morning, afternoon, and evening. Morning occurs between sunrise and noon.^[29] Afternoon occurs between noon and sunset.^[30] This period of time sees human’s highest body temperature,^[31] an increase of traffic collisions,^[32] and a decrease of productivity.^[33] Evening occurs between the end of afternoon and before sleep.^[34]

Twilight[edit]

Twilight is the period before sunset and after sunrise in which there is natural light but no direct sunlight.^[35] Twilight can be subdivided into dawn or dusk, or into civil twilight, nautical twilight, and astronomical twilight. Civil twilight begins when the sun is 6 degrees below the horizon; nautical begins at 12 degrees, and astronomical begins at 18 degrees.^[36]

Night[edit]

Night is the period in which the sky is dark,^[37] or the period between dusk and dawn where no light is visible.^[38] Due to the darkness of night, it affects the circadian rhythm; artificial light during night can disrupt circadian rhythms and sleep.^[39]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

Translingual[edit]

Symbol[edit]

day

1. (international standards) ISO 639-2 & ISO 639-5 language code for Land Dayak languages.

English[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

• daie, daye (obsolete)

Etymology[edit]

From Middle English day, from Old English dæġ (“day”), from Proto-West Germanic *dag, from Proto-Germanic *dagaz (“day”); see there for more.

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”), Gothic 𐌳𐌰𐌲𐍃 (dags, “day”). Possible cognates beyond Germanic relatives include 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[edit]

• (UK, US) enPR: dā, IPA^(key): /deɪ̯/
• (General Australian, New Zealand) enPR: dā, IPA^(key): /dæɪ̯/
• Rhymes: -eɪ
• Homophone: dey

Noun[edit]

day (plural days)

1. Any period of 24 hours.

   I’ve been here for two days and a bit.

2. (informal or 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.

3. A period from midnight to the following midnight.

   The day begins at midnight.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:day

4. (astronomy) Rotational period of a planet (especially Earth).

   A day on Mars is slightly over 24 hours.

5. 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. […]”

6. 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.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     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, […].

   Synonyms: daylight, upsun; see also Thesaurus:daytime

   Antonyms: night; see also Thesaurus:nighttime

7. 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:

     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.

   • 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.

   Synonyms: era, epoch; see also Thesaurus:era

8. A period of contention of a day or less.

   The day belonged to the Allies.

Hypernyms[edit]

Hyponyms[edit]

Derived terms[edit]

[edit]

Descendants[edit]

• Sranan Tongo: dei

Translations[edit]

References[edit]

• Day (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Verb[edit]

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).

   • 1885, Richard F. Burton, chapter XXIII, in The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, volume I, The Burton Club, page 233:

     I nighted and dayed in Damascus town[.]

See also[edit]

• (days of the week) day of the week; Sunday,‎ Monday,‎ Tuesday,‎ Wednesday,‎ Thursday,‎ Friday,‎ Saturday ^{(Category: en:Days of the week) [edit]}
• Sabbath
• calendar

Anagrams[edit]

• d’ya, y’ad, yad

Azerbaijani[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Common Turkic *dāy.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): [dɑj]

Noun[edit]

day (definite accusative dayı, plural daylar)

1. colt, foal

Declension[edit]

Declension of day
	singular	plural
nominative	day	daylar
definite accusative	dayı	dayları
dative	daya	daylara
locative	dayda	daylarda
ablative	daydan	daylardan
definite genitive	dayın	dayların

Possessive forms of day
	nominative
singular	plural
mənim (“my”)	dayım	daylarım
sənin (“your”)	dayın	dayların
onun (“his/her/its”)	dayı	dayları
bizim (“our”)	dayımız	daylarımız
sizin (“your”)	dayınız	daylarınız
onların (“their”)	dayı or dayları	dayları
	accusative
singular	plural
mənim (“my”)	dayımı	daylarımı
sənin (“your”)	dayını	daylarını
onun (“his/her/its”)	dayını	daylarını
bizim (“our”)	dayımızı	daylarımızı
sizin (“your”)	dayınızı	daylarınızı
onların (“their”)	dayını or daylarını	daylarını
	dative
singular	plural
mənim (“my”)	dayıma	daylarıma
sənin (“your”)	dayına	daylarına
onun (“his/her/its”)	dayına	daylarına
bizim (“our”)	dayımıza	daylarımıza
sizin (“your”)	dayınıza	daylarınıza
onların (“their”)	dayına or daylarına	daylarına
	locative
singular	plural
mənim (“my”)	dayımda	daylarımda
sənin (“your”)	dayında	daylarında
onun (“his/her/its”)	dayında	daylarında
bizim (“our”)	dayımızda	daylarımızda
sizin (“your”)	dayınızda	daylarınızda
onların (“their”)	dayında or daylarında	daylarında
	ablative
singular	plural
mənim (“my”)	dayımdan	daylarımdan
sənin (“your”)	dayından	daylarından
onun (“his/her/its”)	dayından	daylarından
bizim (“our”)	dayımızdan	daylarımızdan
sizin (“your”)	dayınızdan	daylarınızdan
onların (“their”)	dayından or daylarından	daylarından
	genitive
singular	plural
mənim (“my”)	dayımın	daylarımın
sənin (“your”)	dayının	daylarının
onun (“his/her/its”)	dayının	daylarının
bizim (“our”)	dayımızın	daylarımızın
sizin (“your”)	dayınızın	daylarınızın
onların (“their”)	dayının or daylarının	daylarının

Derived terms[edit]

• dayça

Descendants[edit]

• → Lezgi: тай (taj) (or < Kumyk)

References[edit]

• Clauson, Gerard (1972), “ta:y”, in An Etymological Dictionary of pre-thirteenth-century Turkish, Oxford: Clarendon Press

Further reading[edit]

• “day” in Obastan.com.

Cebuano[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Initial clipping of inday.

Pronunciation[edit]

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

Noun[edit]

day

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

Hawaiian Creole[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From English day.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /deɪ/, /deː/

Noun[edit]

day

1. day

Kalasha[edit]

Verb[edit]

day

1. I am

Middle English[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

From Old English dæġ, from Proto-West Germanic *dag.

Alternative forms[edit]

• dai, dæi, dey, daȝ, dæȝ, dei, daye, daȝȝ, daȝh, daiȝ, *dah

Pronunciation[edit]

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

Noun[edit]

day (plural dayes or days or dawes)

1. day (composed of 24 hours)
   • 1387–1400, [Geoffrey] Chaucer, “The [Clerkys] Tale [of Oxenford]”, in The Tales of Caunt́burẏ (Hengwrt Chaucer; Peniarth Manuscript 392D), Aberystwyth, Ceredigion: National Library of Wales, published c. 1400–1410], →OCLC, folio 184, verso, lines 783-784:

     Toward Saluces / shapyng hir iourney / ffro day to day / they ryden in hir wey […]

     Towards Saluzzo they make their journey, / From day to day they ride on their way […]

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[edit]

• nyght

[edit]

Descendants[edit]

• English: day
• Scots: day
• Yola: die, dei, dey, daie

References[edit]

• “dai, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-03-20.

Etymology 2[edit]

Pronoun[edit]

day

1. Alternative form of þei (“they”)

Scots[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Middle English day.

Noun[edit]

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.

Tagalog[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /ˈdaj/, [ˈdaɪ̯]

Noun[edit]

day

1. Alternative spelling of ‘day

There are two competing interpretations of where «day» comes from—one OP’s; the other yours—and both have some problems.

OP is referring to the etymology that derives «day» from PIE **dʰegʷʰ-*, a root that gives the adjective «warm» and the verb «to burn». Just as you said, a «d» in English ought to come from a *dʰ in PIE, and that is the case here, though OP did a rather poor job of transliterating the reconstructed form. If this is the source of «day» in English, then it doesn’t really have any semantic parallels in other daughters, where it generally means «burn» in some way (Latin fovere is «to make warm», source of English «foment»; Ancient Greek τέϕρα «ashes»). There are a few other phonological hiccups that have to have occurred between PIE and Proto-Germanic too, which are also difficult to explain away.

Your interpretation has semantic parallels in Indo-Iranian languages, but we have to account for that «d», which isn’t in the PIE root and is absent from the other putative cognates. The etymological dictionary you linked assumes (I think?) that the «d» is an epenthesis that arose between the indefinite article ān «a(n)» and the noun itself, which then spread through the paradigm, though that is less than a given as well.

At any rate, you are definitely not wrong about the conflicting evidence. OP is at least guilty of sloppiness, though his/her information has some merit too.

We can often hear «What day is it today?» ,»What is your favourite season?»,
«What month were you born in?» but we don’t think about the origin of these names. I
got interested in this problem and today I am ready to tell you about the origin of some
English names.

Aims of my work:

• to find out the origin of English day, month and season names
• to follow their changes under the influence of other religions

Let’s start with

The origin of English day names

The days of the week are based on Greek mythology. The original Greek and Roman naming
has been changed over the years to match the equivalent gods of north European mythology.

Each day was connected to the planet or moon of its first hour, which resulted not only
in us having seven days a week, but also the names of those days.

The first day of the week was Saturn’s day (Saturday), but on their flight from the
Egyptians, the Jews changed it and made Saturday their Sabbath, the last day of the week.

So following the Jewish day numbering system, with the last day of the week being
Saturday, the first day of the week became:

Sunday: Day of the Sun

Latin: dies solis — Helios, god of the Sun

Saxon: sunnandaeg — god of the heat and light ball in the sky.

Sun worship has always been popular and for obvious reasons — the Sun gives us the
warmth and light essential for our survival.

Monday: Day of the Moon

Latin: dies lunae — Luna or Selene goddess of the moon

Saxon: mona — god of the light ball in the night sky, and tide maker.

Tuesday: Day of Mars

Latin: dies martis — Mars or Aires, god of war

Saxon: tiwesdaeg — etymologically related to Zeus (see Thursday). Tiw lived on a high
mountain and guided warriors who worshipped him. If a warrior died in battle Tiw would
come down to Earth with his angels and take the dead warrior to heaven.

Wednesday: Woden’s day

Latin: dies mercurii — Mercury or Hermes, Messenger of the gods

Saxon: Wodnesdaeg — Woden’s day (King of the gods). Woden was the god that controlled
all the other gods. His number-one mission was to gain all knowledge and wisdom. He
visited all four corners of the world to gather information. Nothing could be hidden from
him.

Thursday: Thor’s day

Latin: dies jovis — Jove or Zeus, god of thunder

Saxon: thuresdaeg — Thor’s day (god of thunder). Thunder was the sign that Thor was
angrily throwing his large hammer across the sky.It’s a good idea not to annoy this god.

Friday: Fria’s day

Latin: dies veneris — Venus or Aphrodite, goddess of love

Saxon: frigedaeg — Freya’s day (goddess of love). Frigg was a kind and beautiful Norse
goddess and Odin’s wife.Odin was the most powerful god. Frigg’s specialty was love and
marriage.

Saturday: Saturn’s day

Latin: dies saturni — Saturn, god of agriculture

Saxon: Seterne’s day (god of agriculture). People believed that the god named Saturn
controlled the weather.Sacrificing a farm animal to Saturni would increase the chances of
pleasing the god, resulting in a good crop.

The origin of English month names

At first March was considered to be the first month of the ancient Roman calendar. Then
in1582 A.D Pope Gregory XIII established the Gregorian calendar with January being as the
1st month of the year. The word ‘calendar’ stems from calare (to call out), just as the
ancient priests did when they announced a new moon. The word ‘month’ of course, stems from
‘moon’. The month names we used were chosen to celebrate the Roman deities and emperors.

January: the Roman god Janus was the god of doorways, entrances, gateways,
thresholds and beginnings, and therefore used for the opening of the New Year.

February: February used to be the last month of the Roman calendar. A Pagan
festival of purification called Februa was on the15th day of the month and so this month
came to be known as Februa’s month.

March: The Roman god Mars was the god of war and guardian of the state. This was
the first month of the ancient Roman calendar.

April: was considered a sacred Roman month for the goddess Venus. The name ‘April’
is probably from Apru, an Etruscan borrowing of Greek Aphrodite, their fertility goddess.
Alternatively, it may stem from the Latin aperire (to open), as so many buds and blossoms
open in this month.

May: This is from Maia who was a Roman goddess of earth, honour and reverence. She
was Vulcan’s wife, Mercury’s mother and Atlas’s daughter

June:The chief goddness Juno was Jupiter’s wife and the queen of the heavens and
gods. Later June became a popular name for girls.

July: was named after the death of Julius Caesar in 44 BC to deify and immortalize
him. Gaius Julius Caesar was born in this month, which was formerly Quintilis (the fifth)
month of the ancient Roman calendar.

August: was named after Augustus Caesar in 8 BC. He was the adopted heir of Julius
Caesar .A synonym for the adjective ‘august’ is ‘venerable’, and the emperor was known as
Venerable Caesar.

The next four months are just based on the Roman numeral system. Since in the ancient
Roman the year used to begin in March, so September through to December were months 7 to
10. A numbering system is still used in many cultures today for the whole year.

September: comes from the Latin «septem», meaning ‘seven’.

October: comes from the Latin «octo», meaning ‘eight’. This is the month when
people start thinking of Christmas and New Year parties. These days are always the same
weekday as 2nd October.

November: comes from the Latin «novem», meaning ‘nine’.

December: comes from the Latin «decem», meaning ‘ten’.

The origin of English season names

Winter: No mythical god … just cold! It is the season of wind and white snow,
hence the name ‘winter’.

Spring: is the time when new plants spring up after a harsh winter.

Summer: is from Old Norse «sumarsdag».It is the time for lots of sunshine.

Autumn: is the time for reaping and harvesting the main crops of the year. The old
English name for this season of «harvest» was replaced by the Latin autumnus in the
16th Century. Also know as «Fall» in America, as this is the time the
temperature falls and leaves fall from the trees.

Results: names of English days, months and seasons originally came from Greek
and Roman mythology in the flow of time they were influenced by north European mythology

Приложение 1.

The English language days of the week are named after celestial bodies and mythological figures from history. A mish-mash of cultures and traditions have had an influence on the naming of the days and for those of us studying the English language they provide a fascinating insight into the way that the language is formed.

English draws upon Ancient Greek, Latin and Germanic languages and these influences can all be seen in the names of the days of the week. We use them everyday without realizing just how much they tell us about our language and history, and they serve to show us the similarities between English and so many other European languages.

So let’s take a look at the seven days of the week and how they came to be named.

Greek and Roman gods

The original order of the days, between the 1st and 3rd centuries, was Sun, Moon, Ares, Hermes, Zeus, Aphrodite, and Cronos. These were named after the heavenly bodies that presided over the first daylight hour of each day, according to Hellenistic astrology. From Greece the planetary week names passed to the Romans, from Latin to other languages of southern and western Europe and to other languages later influenced by them.

Why did the Romans name the days of the week after their gods’ names for the planets? Because they saw a connection between their gods and the changing face of the nighttime sky. The ones they were able to see in the sky each night were Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Those five planets plus the moon and sun made seven major astronomical bodies so it was natural to use these seven names when the seven-day week arrived.

Sunday

The first day of the week was named after the sun – dies Solis – day of the sun in Latin and later Sunnon-dagaz in old Germanic. It’s easy to see where the English word Sunday comes from here.

Monday

It’s similarly easy to see where this weekday name originates too. Monday is the moon day – dies Lunae in Latin, becoming Mon(an)dæg in Old English.

Tuesday

Whereas most English days of the week retain their associations with the Roman gods, some were substituted for the names of the equivalent Germanic gods, because English is a Germanic language.

Tuesday was named for the Roman god of war, Mars, so in Latin was known as dies Martis. However, the Germanic god of war was known as Tiu and the English day of the week is derived from this Germanic god’s name instead, first known as Tiwsday and eventually Tuesday.

Wednesday

Similarly, the Germanic equivalent of the Roman god Mercury was the equally as swift Woden. And so this day, which started out in Latin as dies Mercurii became Woden’s day in old Germanic, eventually becoming Wednesday in English.

Thursday

Jupiter, also known as Jove, is the supreme Roman god and patron of the Roman state. He is the god that created thunder and lightning. Thor is the Norse god of thunder, often shown riding through the sky in a chariot. And it’s from this Norse god that we see the Latin dies Jovis (day of Jupiter) become Thor’s day and eventually Thursday.

Friday

Venus is the Roman goddess of love and beauty, and in Latin her day was known as dies Veneris. We get the English name for Venus’ day from Frigg, the Norse goddess of love and the heavens, and possibly Fria, the Teutonic goddess of love and beauty. In Germanic we have Frije-dagaz, later becoming Friday in English.

Saturday

We end with an easy one. Saturn is the Roman god of agriculture, known in Ancient Greece as Cronos. In Latin we have dies Saturni and it’s not hard to see that Saturday today is still very much Saturn’s day.