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Is there a word that refers to the nights of the days during the weekend? A weeknight is a night during Monday-Friday, but I don't know one for Saturday-Sunday, or even Friday-Saturday when referring to nights that are not followed by work the next morning.

Example sentence:

I keep to myself on weeknights, but like to meet up with friends on xyz.

Xyz here should mean "Friday, Saturday, or Sunday nights." I'd be satisfied with Friday-Saturday or Saturday-Sunday.

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    Non-weeknights?
    – BladorthinTheGrey
    May 23, 2018 at 20:55
  • @BladorthinTheGrey if that's the best there is, then so be it. I suppose I'm hoping there's something succinct?
    – PunDefeated
    May 23, 2018 at 20:56
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    I was just providing that off the top of my head, probably unhelpfully. I simply can’t think of a specific word for it. Interested to see if there is though. (Hence the upvote)
    – BladorthinTheGrey
    May 23, 2018 at 20:58
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    An even more interesting question would be 'when did week come to have two meanings (either a seven day period or a five day period) ?
    – Nigel J
    May 23, 2018 at 21:24
  • The OED gives two definitions of 'weekday' which are either a contrast with a Sunday (or maybe Sunday-Saturday) or a contrast with a market day. Therefore a non-weeknight is either on a Sunday or a Saturday-Sunday or a market night. It's a weekend-night or a Sunday night or a marketday-night.
    – Nigel J
    May 23, 2018 at 21:38

2 Answers 2

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In my house, we use "non-school night" for Friday and Saturday evenings (Sunday evening is a school night, since it's followed by school on Monday morning). I think this would be very widely understood in the US, even for folks who are no longer in school. For example, the base term school night is defined by Cambridge Dictionaries (emphasis added) as:

the evening before a day when children have to go to school. Adults also use this expression informally to describe the evening before a day when they have to get up to go to work.

The negated term has even been codified into law in some places:

Non-school night always refers to Fridays and Saturdays but also means any night in which the next day Crisp County schools are closed to students.
—Cordele, GA Code of the City, "Curfew for Minors", Chapter 12, Article I., Sec. 12-13.

As these definitions suggest, while the term most often means Friday and Saturday evenings, it would stretch to encompass vacation nights in the middle of the week, but that would probably be clear from context. In context, it's probably less ambiguous than some more common phrases like "weekend evenings" with regards to the inclusion or exclusion of Friday and Sunday nights. It's also definitely a more casual, tongue-in-cheek expression when applied to adults, suitable for casual conversation but probably not for, say, company work policies.

So you could say:

I keep to myself on weeknights, but like to meet up with friends on non-school nights.

and be understood to mean that you like to meet friends in the evening and night hours of Fridays and Saturdays.

However, I'll note that I would usually expect a straightforward phrase, such as weekend nights or weekend evenings or in the evening on weekends or even Friday and Saturday evenings, possibly with some clarifying language where necessary. A bare on the weekend might even be sufficient in context; for example, absent any other information, I would assume a statement like "I like to party on the weekend" refers primarily to Friday and Saturday evenings/nights, since most "partying" happens in the evening/at night. That's coming from a US-cultural perspective, but I suspect the same now holds true in much of the Anglosphere.

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    This also could work with "non-work nights" for those of us not attending school.
    – PunDefeated
    May 23, 2018 at 23:30
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The OED gives two definitions of 'weekday' which are either a contrast with a Sunday (or maybe Sunday-Saturday) or a contrast with a market day.

A day of the week other than market day or Sunday.

A day of the week other than Saturday or Sunday

OED

Therefore a non-weeknight is either on a Sunday or a Saturday-Sunday or a market day.

Thus a 'non-weeknight' is either a 'weekend-night' or a 'Sunday night' or a 'marketday-night'.

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  • What exactly do you mean by a "market day"? I assume it is British terminology. But the notion of "market days" are somewhat dated now. Though small towns often still have a designated day when market stalls are set up. I think the idea that it is critical to the understanding of "week-night" is well out of date. What are the dates of the examples the OED gives?
    – WS2
    May 23, 2018 at 22:27
  • @WS2 Your point accepted wholeheartedly: I was just being thorough. The latest date relating to market-days is 1995. I deliberately bolded my suggestion of weekend-night .
    – Nigel J
    May 23, 2018 at 22:31

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