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An anniversary refers to the yearly recurrence of a date of an event. However, being an incredibly sentimental person who also takes notice of all sorts of minor details, I find myself placing significance in anniversaries that happen on the same day of the week.

For example, if an event occurred on Tuesday, June 10, 2008, today will be the sixth anniversary of said event. However, today also happens to be the first anniversary that falls on the same day of the week, i.e., Tuesday, June 10, 2014.

Is there a term that I can use for this, similar to the word "anniversary", or will I have to describe its significance?1


1 I'll probably have to either way, if the term turns out to be a really obscure one.

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    No, there is no such term. If you coin one, it might catch on, but probably would not. Since the year is 52 weeks and 1 day long, with leap years every 4 years, this will happen every 6 years until the year 2100.
    – Oldcat
    Commented Jun 11, 2014 at 18:21

1 Answer 1

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If we follow the etymological path of anniversary:

from annus (genitive anni) "year" (see annual (adj.)) + versus, past participle of vertere "to turn" (see versus).

we can come up with dieiversary as a neologism. (or it can be simplified as diversary or dieversary). Though diversary can be confused as a form of diverse. (or a second anniversary?). I can see that some people already thought about this when you do a search.

In Latin, diēs is day and the genitive form is diēī.

Note: There is also a neologism diaversary which is used for the diabetes diagnosis anniversary.


On the other hand, we would call it a curious coincidence in a normal day. What a coincidence that Merriam-Webster has this example usage:

By a curious coincidence, they bought a house the same day their old one burned down.

Though there is a mathematical and astronomical explanation for the reason that an anniversary can fall on the same day of the week. Usually the first anniversary wouldn't fall on the same day of the event, unless a leap year day occurs on the first year of the event. Because 365 has a remainder 1 when divided by 7 and adding one day gives you the next day of the original event day.


You might say coinciding anniversaries also but it is usually used when the anniversaries of two different events coincide. Though it can be applied to the coinciding anniversaries of the same event.

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  • "Though there is a mathematical and astronomical explanation for the reason that an anniversary can fall on the same day of the week. [...]" This is probably one of the reasons why I find it so intriguing. Coining words does sound like a nice hobby to get into every decade or two though. It's also nice to know that I'm not the only one in the world who's thought about this, even if understandably few others do.
    – BoltClock
    Commented Jun 17, 2014 at 17:03
  • I just found dieiversary in “The Heart’s Filthy Lesson” by Elizabeth Bear. Since the OED records words by usage, this is an indication that this is a “real word”. Commented Dec 12, 2016 at 14:05

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