Kate Bornstein
Did you know?
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
Shi En Kim, AZCentral.com, 26 Mar. 2026
When commissioners hold their first meeting in the new chambers Thursday, they will be seated in a building again reflecting its 1930s heyday as a seaplane terminal, before plaster and acoustic tile masked the historic designs etched on the ceilings.
—Miami Herald Archives, Miami Herald, 26 Mar. 2026
The Raceway, which operated from the mid-1950s through the 1970s, featured a quarter-mile track at the Wally Smith farm, a mile-and-a-half west of town on Route 34 that was drawing three times the village’s total population for races during its heyday, local historians have said.
—Linda Girardi, Chicago Tribune, 23 Mar. 2026
During the heyday of OpenBiome, some insurers covered the procedure.
—Eric Boodman, STAT, 23 Mar. 2026
See All Example Sentences for heyday
Cite this Entry
“Heyday.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/heyday. Accessed 29 Mar. 2026.
Copy Citation
