Workweeks

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A series of consecutive days within which one engages in professional tasks or duties
2. the standard duration of employment-related activities typically spanning from Monday to Friday
3. a designated period that includes all regular hours dedicated to employment responsibilities

Etymology: "Workweek" is a compound of "work" and "week," built from two plain English words with no borrowing involved. The second element comes from Old English "wice," and "work" from Old English "weorc," so the compound simply describes the span of days set aside for labour. Its meaning is a straightforward combination of its parts, and it is not a specialist coinage. The more interesting part of the story is the concept it names. A "week" was a fixed cycle of days long before factories and offices standardised it, and the seven-day unit traces back to Babylonian and Jewish reckoning, not to any single modern decision. The compound "workweek" only became necessary once the working week was itself a matter of debate, when the length of the labour period was fixed by law or contract and needed a name of its own.

Synonyms: work periods, employment weeks