everyday

English

Alternative forms

• every day (obsolete)
• every-day
• every day's

Etymology

From Middle English everidayes, every daies, every dayes (“everyday, daily, continual, constant”, adjective, literally “every day's”), equivalent to every +‎ day.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɛvɹiˌdeɪ/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

Adjective

everyday (not comparable)

1. Appropriate for ordinary use, rather than for special occasions.
   • 1906, Edith Nesbit, The Railway Children, Chapter 4: The engine-burglar,

     When they had gone, Bobbie put on her everyday frock, and went down to the railway.

2. Commonplace, ordinary.
   • 2010, Malcolm Knox, The Monthly, April 2010, Issue 55, The Monthly Ptd Ltd, page 42:

     Although it is an everyday virus, there is something about influenza that inspires awe.

3. (rare) Commonplace or ordinary during daytime.

   Coordinate term: everynight

   • 1931, Jack While, Fifty Years of Fire Fighting in London, London: Hutchinson & Co. (Publishers), Ltd., page 18:

     This was an everyday and everynight scene a couple of decades ago.

   • 1992, Patricia Connelly, Pat Armstrong, editors, Feminism in Action: Studies in Political Economy, Toronto, Ont.: Canadian Scholars’ Press, →ISBN, pages 16–17:

     It calls for methods of thinking, of writing texts, and of investigation that expand and extend our knowledge of how our everyday/everynight worlds are put together, determined and shaped as they are by forces and powers beyond our practical and direct knowledge.

   • 1997, Celeste Fraser Delgado, José Esteban Muñoz, “Rebellions of Everynight Life”, in Celeste Fraser Delgado, José Esteban Muñoz, editors, Everynight Life: Culture and Dance in Latin/o America, Duke University Press, →ISBN, page 20:

     The locus of emancipatory hopes shifts from everyday to everynight life.

Synonyms

• mundane
• quotidian
• routine
• unremarkable
• workaday

Derived terms

Translations

Adverb

everyday

1. Misspelling of every day (compare everywhere, everyway, etc.).

Usage notes

When describing the frequency of an action denoted by a verb, it is considered correct to separate the individual words: every hour, every day, every week, etc.

Influenza is considered an everyday virus because it infects people every day.

Noun

everyday (uncountable)

1. (obsolete) Literally every day in succession, or every day but Sunday.
2. (rare) The ordinary or routine day or occasion.

   Putting away the tableware for everyday, a chore which is part of the everyday.

   • 2003, Robert Pack, Belief and Uncertainty in the Poetry of Robert Frost (Middlebury College press)‎, UPNE, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 110:

     Then you came in. I heard your rumbling voice
     Out in the kitchen , and I don't know why ,
     But I went near to see with my own eyes .
     You could sit there with the stains on your shoes
     Of the fresh earth from your own baby's grave
     And talk about your everyday concerns. […]

Translations

References

• James A. H. Murray [et al.], editors (1884–1928), “Everyday”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volumes III (D–E), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 345, column 1.