week

noun

ˈwēk

: any of a series of 7-day cycles used in various calendars

especially : a 7-day cycle beginning on Sunday and ending on Saturday

b(1)

: a week beginning with a specified day or containing a specified holiday

the week of the 18th

(2)

: a week appointed for public recognition of some cause

: any seven consecutive days

: a series of regular working, business, or school days during each 7-day period

British : a time seven days before or after a specified day

last Sunday week

Examples of week in a Sentence

the last week of the month I can meet you sometime next week. The menu changes each week. You can never be sure what will happen from one week to the next. The menu changes from week to week. The baby is two weeks old. I'll be on vacation for two weeks starting this Tuesday. That car rents for $200 a week. I arrived a week ago. It took him two weeks to paint the house. See More

Recent Examples on the Web Last week, Israeli forces agreed to a four-day ceasefire, which was extended for two days and is meant to end on Thursday morning. —

Elsa Keslassy, Variety, 29 Nov. 2023 Several weeks after Canyon Mansfield was poisoned, Fahy said Wildlife Services agreed to stop using M-44s in Idaho. —

Scott Sonner, Fortune, 29 Nov. 2023 The companies deliver chicks and feed to the farms, then retrieve the full-size chickens several weeks later. —

H. Claire Brown, New York Times, 29 Nov. 2023 Information provided from the Israeli government, Kibbutz Nir Oz and other sources in Israel offers details on the people who were held captive for weeks in Gaza. —

WSJ, 29 Nov. 2023 The release also says that 4 million COVID tests are being distributed each week — a number expected to increase as school districts take advantage of the new program, which will draw from an existing stockpile of hundreds of millions of tests. —

C Mandler, CBS News, 29 Nov. 2023 But holiday spending will continue for a few more weeks. —

Kiri Masters, Forbes, 29 Nov. 2023 The track stayed at Number One on the Hot 100 for 16 weeks, beating out Harry Styles’ record of longest run for a non-collaboration. —

Tomás Mier, Rolling Stone, 29 Nov. 2023 Surveys have found the Party so divided on the matter that, in an AP-NORC survey released last week, nearly half of Democrats disapproved of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict. —

Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker, 17 Nov. 2023 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'week.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Middle English weke, from Old English wicu, wucu; akin to Old High German wehha week and perhaps to Latin vicis change, alternation, Old High German wehsal exchange

First Known Use

before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Time Traveler

The first known use of week was before the 12th century

See more words from the same century