Fortnights

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A time duration lasting fourteen days that is frequently utilized for various planning purposes
2. A unit of time representing a span of two weeks, commonly employed for scheduling events or deadlines
3. A length of time equal to two weeks often used to measure intervals between events

Etymology: "Fortnights" is simply the plural of "fortnight," so the real story sits in the singular. Its ancestor was the Old English "fēowertīene niht," literally "fourteen nights," and the phrasing reveals something about how the Anglo-Saxons reckoned time: they counted by nights rather than days, so a stretch of fourteen nights was the natural way to name two weeks. Over the Middle English period this shrank into "fourtenyght" and then "fortnight," the vowels and consonants worn down in ordinary speech. The word "fortnight" is a compound of "fourteen" and "night," and its close relative "sennight," meaning seven nights or a week, was built the same way. Together the pair shows an older system in which the night, not the day, marked the unit of time.

Synonyms: two weeks