Kate Bornstein
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The day in heyday originally had nothing to do with the kind of day that's made up of 24 hours. Heyday was first used in the first half of the 16th century as an extended form of the interjection hey, used since the 13th century to express elation or wonder, as it still often is in phrases like "hey, look at that!" The day part was most likely just an extra syllable tagged on for effect. By the end of the 16th century heyday had developed noun use with the meaning "high spirits," as when Shakespeare's Hamlet tells his mother, "You cannot call it love; for at your age / The heyday in the blood is tame …” It wasn't until the 18th century that the day syllable's resemblance to the word day likely influenced the development of the now-familiar use referring to the period when one's achievement or popularity has reached its zenith.
Examples of heyday in a Sentence
Jack King, Vulture, 17 Dec. 2025
Monod, who is a professor of American Social and Cultural History at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, stresses the importance of Variety as a chronicle of vaudeville in its heyday.
—Cynthia Littleton, Variety, 16 Dec. 2025
Altman remembers that era as the heyday of Republican environmentalism.
—Denise Hruby, Miami Herald, 15 Dec. 2025
But Reiner had a spectacular run in his heyday, helping to define an era of Hollywood without ever really indicating toward his own contributions to that iconography.
—Richard Lawson, HollywoodReporter, 15 Dec. 2025
See All Example Sentences for heyday
Cite this Entry
“Heyday.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/heyday. Accessed 23 Dec. 2025.
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