Weekend or week-end: hyphen or not? (2025)

what is the right form for WEEKEND?

WEEK-END? or without -

You can use "week-end" to mean the end of the week (i.e. rather than the two-day period of Saturday and Sunday), just as "year-end" means the end of the year.

In a work context, you could write: "I must receive the report by week-end," in which case it probably means by the close of business on Friday. However, this is not particularly common and probably wouldn't be used in speech because of the ambiguity.

But in the sense you mean, I agree that it's one word with no hyphen.

Thank you both!

sweetpotatoboy said:

You can use "week-end" to mean the end of the week (i.e. rather than the two-day period of Saturday and Sunday), just as "year-end" means the end of the year.

In a work context, you could write: "I must receive the report by week-end," in which case it probably means by the close of business on Friday. However, this is not particularly common and probably wouldn't be used in speech because of the ambiguity.

But in the sense you mean, I agree that it's one word with no hyphen.

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bouncy.bouncy said:

Weekend, no hyphen no matter what.

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Despite bouncy's dogmatism, if you were writing in BE, you would be very welcome to write either weekend or week-end, whichever you choose.
In fact, if you were to go by the Shorter OED, only week-end is acceptable.

bouncy.bouncy said:

Weekend, no hyphen no matter what.

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No matter what? I guess you take as gospel truth that what isn't in the Cambridge Advanced Learners Dict. just doesn't exist. My favorite US English dictionary, the Random House Unabridged, has entries and examples for both weekend and week-end.

cuchuflete said:

No matter what? I guess you take as gospel truth that what isn't in the Cambridge Advanced Learners Dict. just doesn't exist. My favorite US English dictionary, the Random House Unabridged, has entries and examples for both weekend and week-end.

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In other words, you can use either weekend or week-end.

Although, if you're speaking of Saturday and Sunday, I'd use weekend.

caballoschica said:

In other words, you can use either weekend or week-end.

Although, if you're speaking of Saturday and Sunday, I'd use weekend.

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Could you explain?

Sure:

sweetpotatoboy said:

You can use "week-end" to mean the end of the week (i.e. rather than the two-day period of Saturday and Sunday), just as "year-end" means the end of the year.

In a work context, you could write: "I must receive the report by week-end," in which case it probably means by the close of business on Friday. However, this is not particularly common and probably wouldn't be used in speech because of the ambiguity.

But in the sense you mean, I agree that it's one word with no hyphen.

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You can use either word, but they have different uses. Read Sweetpotatoboy's post again.

I totally agree with it

SPB

I thought it might be interesting to look at the various different usage examples in the OED. It lists examples of week end, week-end and weekend.

Week end appears only as the earliest usage. Otherwise, the following are generalisations - there are exceptions.

The period of time from Friday evening/ Saturday to Sunday/ Monday morning is week-end - stay for the week-end, away for the week-end, home

The adjectival or attributive version is generally weekend - weekend bag, weekend sailor.

"Something for the weekend," is always so

There are no examples of week-end, or weekend being used to mean the end of the week.

Edit: Correction, there is one example for definition 1.c "The end (i.e. the last day) of the week; Saturday. dial."

Here is some week-end reading:

1.the end of a week, esp. the period of time between Friday evening and Monday morning: We spent the weekend at Virginia Beach. 2.this period as extended by one or more holidays, days off, or the like, that immediately precede or follow: We're getting a three-day weekend at Christmas. 3.any two-day period taken or given regularly as a weekly rest period from one's work: I have to work at the hospital on Saturdays and Sundays, so I take my weekends on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

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RH Unabridged.

a time period usually extending from Friday night through Sunday; more loosely defined as any period of successive days including one and only one Sunday

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Princeton WordNet

Week-end
\Week"-end"\, n. The end of the week; specif., though loosely, the period observed commonly as a holiday, from Saturday noon or Friday night to Monday; as, to visit one for a week-end; also, a house party during a week-end.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

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week|end or week-end (wek'ed; also wek end) n. the period from Friday night or Saturday to Monday morning; end of the week:

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Webster's New World Dictionary

Surely a question of usage here.
To hyphenate weekend is quite ridiculous in my opinion.

But then, I am in quite a bad mood to-day.

panjandrum said:

"Something for the weekend," is always so

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Smack, smack, Panj.

Although you'd need to be pretty old to understand what that phrase means.

panjandrum said:

Despite bouncy's dogmatism, if you were writing in BE, you would be very welcome to write either weekend or week-end, whichever you choose.
In fact, if you were to go by the Shorter OED, only week-end is acceptable.

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I think this is due to that dictionary being outdated. The Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English has only the spelling weekend.

On a side note, I find it odd that the Oxford English Dictionary's entry "week-end," although its cites clearly show the spellings week end and weekend, does not have a section on spelling variants, as it does with so many other words.

XS,

Use weekend and you'll be fine. [Let the academics debate over superfluous things of no consequence.]

Unlike some, I don't consider myself qualified to dismiss Robert Graves as inconsequential.

The Long Week-End (Main Page)
Robert Graves and Alan Hodge. The Long Week-End. A Social History of Great Britain 1918-1939. A classic social history by two distinguished writers who ...
www.wwnorton.com/catalog/spring01/031136.htm

cuchuflete said:

No matter what? I guess you take as gospel truth that what isn't in the Cambridge Advanced Learners Dict. just doesn't exist. My favorite US English dictionary, the Random House Unabridged, has entries and examples for both weekend and week-end.

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What year is the edition you're referring to? The version of the Random House Unabridged Online, at Infoplease.com, copyright 1997, has no examples of week-end. As far as I can tell, it is the same dictionary as the paper edition of the Random House Unabridged for 1997 except that it does not include usage notes.

cuchuflete said:

Unlike some, I don't consider myself qualified to dismiss Robert Graves as inconsequential.

The Long Week-End (Main Page)
Robert Graves and Alan Hodge. The Long Week-End. A Social History of Great Britain 1918-1939. A classic social history by two distinguished writers who ...
www.wwnorton.com/catalog/spring01/031136.htm

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I took Judica's post to mean that the original poster could use weekend and not receive criticism from anyone, from any variety of English. I agree with that point.

On the other hand, I would very strongly advise the original poster to avoid week-end when writing something intended for American audiences. I expect most American readers would take week-end to be an anachronistic error on the order of to-day.

This is the latest edition, renamed, but still essentially an update of the RHUD:

week-end

- 1 dictionary result

Week-end
Week"-end"\, n. The end of the week; specif., though loosely, the period observed commonly as a holiday, from Saturday noon or Friday night to Monday; as, to visit one for a week-end; also, a house party during a week-end.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

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William Styron hyphenates it in

. Those who assert that the topic is closed might wish to reconsider.

mplsray said:

I took Judica's post to mean that the original poster could use weekend and not receive criticism from anyone, from any variety of English. I agree with that point.

On the other hand, I would very strongly advise the original poster to avoid week-end when writing something intended for American audiences. I expect most American readers would take week-end to be an anachronistic error on the order of to-day.

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Thanks, you took me correctly.

<< Off topic comment. >>

The word came into use around 1900. First it was written as week-end but now

(in printed works in the Ngram database, at least). There does not seem to be much difference between AE and BE in this regard.