Often in sports I hear of the "professionals" and the "weekend warriors" (people who otherwise have non-sports related jobs and work hard on the weekends to train themselves to participate).
I can't tell if this phrase is meant to be derogatory. Is it meant to mean "these people are warriors who, on top of everything, also train for their sport", or is it meant to mean "these people are just adding an interesting hobby on the weekends and aren't real contenders in this sport"?
Actually, no dictionary defines the expression as derogatory, for instance, from AHD:
weekend warrior n. Informal
One who enthusiastically engages in an activity or hobby on the weekends outside of regular employment:
- "Despite the dangers, wreck divers are typically weekend warriors who leave families and jobs behind to test themselves at two hundred feet down" (New Yorker).
The term is generally not derogatory, but, I have heard it used in a negative context.
I work in the medical profession and have often overheard the following conversation:
ER physician: Patient is a 44 year-old weekend warrior who tore his Achilles tendon playing basketball in the park.
Orthopedic surgeon: Have him follow up in my office after he gets an MRI. We'll evaluate for surgery.
In this context, weekend warrior isn't being used in admiration, but rather as an endictment of overstepping one's level of fitness with resultant injury. The tone of voice with which it's delivered is what adds the derogatory connotation.
In my experience, whether it is derogatory depends on context.
Earlier in my life, I was very much into a variety of sports (biking, climbing, martial arts), typically practicing whatever I was into around 5x a week. When I heard the words "weekend warrior", it generally was not used kindly:
"I can't stand riding the trails on Saturday because all they are all clogged up with weekend warriors, falling off their bikes every time they hit a pebble."
That's slight exaggeration, but not too far off. Within the circle who of those who take the sport seriously, weekend warriors who call themselves athletes are generally not held with high regard.
However, at this point in my life, I have a family and a career. I still do sports I like, but at a much lower frequency. I will happily refer to myself as a weekend warrior, because it's an accurate way to describe my level of participation (assuming you are okay with calling sports war).
I've never encountered it used as a derogatory term. Usually it identifies people who give extra attention to something outside the work week to make up for "lost time".
I always thought this phrase came from the UK's Territorial Army?
The TA is an army reserve where ordinary civilians are paid at standard soldier rates, and everything is as per the regular army, but they are only on duty:
Unless called to operations in theatre, in which case they are paid full-time and are on duty full-time, just as regular soldiers.
For example, the UK has 3 SAS regiments, of which one is a TA regiment. These TA soldiers are literally "weekend warriors".
In my experience, it is somewhat derogatory. (Unless you're talking about people in the National Guard.) It's someone who engages in a fairly strenuous activity requiring skill, but only on weekends &c, and who greatly exaggerates his/her level of skill/commitment.
'Weekend warrior' in slang dictionaries
The earliest slang dictionary notice of "weekend warrior" that I've found is from Robert Chapman, New Dictionary of American Slang (1986), which treats it as interchangeable with "Sunday soldier":
Sunday soldier or weekend warrior n phr A military reservist or member of the National Guard, who typically goes on uniformed duty at the weekend
The same entry, garnished with an origin date of "(1950s+)," appears in the most recent (fourth) edition of Dictionary of American Slang (2007), which is a bit surprising, given that the English speakers have clearly extended usage of the term to apply to people who pursue various nonmilitary activities on an occasional or part-time basis.
Jonathon Green, Chambers Slang Dictionary (2008) captures this broader rage of meanings:
weekend warrior n. 1 {1960s+} (US) members of the National Guard. 2 {1970s+} anyone deemed to be insufficiently dedicated to a given activity or occupation. 3 {1980s} (Aus.) a member of the Australian Army's Reservist units. 4 {1980s} (US drugs) one who takes potentially addictive narcotic drugs on weekends (or similarly special occasions) only 5 see WEEKEND HO above ["{1970s+} (US black) ... 2 (also weekend warrior) an underage prostitute"].
U.S. slang dictionaries were rather slow to pick up on the existence of "weekend warrior" as a slang term for an military reservist. Indeed, the earliest "weekend X" term to appear in the Dictionary of American Slang series was "weekend hippie," in the second supplemented edition (1975):
weekend hippie = plastic hippie ["A part-time, or "week-end" hippie who likes to adopt on occasion hippie attire and mannerisms, but who is not committed to the hippie life-style or beliefs."]
From Green's definitions 2 and 4 and from the 1975 Dictionary of American Slang's definition of "weekend hippie," it appears that the modifier "weekend" (like the modifier "Sunday") often appears as a marker for someone who is not whole-heartedly committed to an activity, occupation, or lifestyle. Nevertheless, a weekend commitment isn't the same as no commitment—and it is certainly possible for people who don't devote any time to an activity, occupation, or lifestyle to acknowledge this in at least a somewhat respectful sense in their use of "weekend warrior."
The early days of 'weekend warrior'
As DavePhD notes in a comment beneath the posted question, circumstantial evidence suggests that "weekend warrior" may have originated in connection with U.S. Naval Air Reserve units. From "Bloomington Man on Annual Summer Trip," in the San Bernardino [California] Sun (August 6, 1950):
A member of the Naval Air Reserve's "Weekend Warrior" Fighter Squadron 776, C. B. Bell, aviation machinist's mate, of 636 Taylor street, Bloomington, is now on his annual summer cruise.
During this year's cruise, Bell's squadron is operating under simulated combat conditions, including gunnery, bombing and rocket firing, night flying and all other training phases.
And from "Reserve Pilot Killed in Crash in Berkeley Hills," in the Santa Cruz [California] Sentinel (January 22, 1951):
Berkeley, Jan. 22 (AP) — A graduate student of the University of California was killed yesterday afternoon when his naval reserve fighter plane crashed and burned on Grizzly Peak in the foothills just above the university campus here.
Dead is Lieut. V. J. MacNeilage, of Berkeley, a "weekend warrior" of the navy's organized reserve fighter squadron 873 at Oakland naval air station.
He was on a routine training flight when his F6F "Hellcat" fighter smashed into the 1759-foot peak in Tilden regional park on Berkeley's eastern boundary. A low overcast limited visibility at the time of the accident.
Whether the term "weekend warrior" was originally a derisive appellation attached to naval reservists by full-time U.S. Navy personnel or an admiring appellation attached to them by full-time civilians is impossible to tell from these instances; but it is clear from the way in which the term appears in quotation marks and initial caps in the "Bloomington Man" story that the reservists themselves proudly took semi-official ownership of it. Moreover, it would have been in incredibly poor taste for the "Reserve Pilot Killed" story to have alluded to the man who died as a "weekend warrior" if that term were widely viewed as a put-down in the early 1950s.
My sense is that "weekend warrior" was viewed as an honorable, if ironic, term for a reservist at this period—five or six years after the end of World War II and a year or two before the Korean War became a major conflict. As for today—when the term has evolved to refer to someone who seriously pursues some athletic or other physical activity away from work or school—the tenor of the expression can be admiring or self-effacing, or it can be belittling, depending on the speaker and the situation at hand. I have heard it used both ways.
It is not inherently derogatory. I refer to myself as a "weekend warrior" for some activities that I do. As other posters have mentioned it is for someone who intensely engages in activities on the weekend. You can spend the same amount of time doing the same activity as a weekend warrior and still not be a weekend warrior because you don't engage as intensely, and do so only within an appropriate amount given your current level of conditioning.
When used as a slight, it means someone whose conditioning is not as good as it should be to engage in the activity to the degree that they do, often resulting in injury, but not always.
However it can also be a compliment for someone who trains during the week or is within their level of conditioning. I have a friend who participates in multiple marathons on weekends, he is a total "weekend warrior" but no one would use that term as a slight with him.
I've always regarded the term as a synonym for dilettante which I've always felt has derogatory connotations.
The context I heard it most regularly was within the Military itself in reference to National Guard or Reserves. I don't recall any Active Duty Soldiers using the phrase. Mostly it was civilian dentists, doctors, engineers, managers or what not that happened to be a enlisted in a reserve capacity.
When one doctor was offered a leadership position during an exercise (they were assisting in training ROTC cadets), he replied, "No thanks. I do leadership during the week. I'm here to be a weekend warrior."
In reference to comments under jamesqf's answer, at the time i heard the phrase the National Guard and Reserves were practically full time. The Regulars' respect for them had increased because they really stepped up to fill the gap in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The only context I've ever heard the term "weekend warrior" used in was for someone whose weekdays are fully involved in going to school or work and so they have little or no time for fun or for partying, but then, on the weekends, they step away from all that and party extremely hard or go out and have extreme fun, doing so so extremely that they push well past what one would think anyone's physical and mental limits should be. It's as though they are on some kind of life-or-death, military mission to cram as much fun and partying into those days as is humanly possible in order to both blow off steam and in order to compensate for the extreme lack of fun they have during the week when all they do is work or study.
An example of a weekend warrior is some twenty-something college grad who works 70 or 80 hours a week in an office, always buttoned up and professional, but then from about 5:00 p.m. on Friday on, he's drinking and going to clubs and dancing and doing drugs and having sex and whatever else he can get into non-stop all weekend until he has to show up for work again on Monday morning at 8:00 a.m. all buttoned up and professional again.
To supplement the other answers, when I have most often heard the term around campgrounds, it is derogatory and refers to people with less skill/experience in the relevant activities. Folks referred to this way are also often less respectful of the norms and best practices around hiking and camping.
For example, such people are more likely to leave litter behind and leave orange peels, apple cores, paper towels, or cooking grease in the woods (even ignoring clearly posted "pack it in, pack it out" type signs), without recognizing the impacts of doing so especially in areas like campgrounds which have a lot more human activity than the baseline for a forest. They might also bring stereo systems and show relatively little respect for others' campsites.
In such contexts, people who respect local norms and best practices (and often even help clean up after others) are often not referred to with the term, even if they have day jobs that prevent them from participating in the activity during the week at that particular stage in their lives. Often, these are people who were more deeply involved with the activity at some prior stage in their lives.
Example usage: "There's a campground here at the foot of the mountain, but you don't want to go there. It's a lot closer to the road; generally populated by weekend warriors and such. Instead, you'll want to go a few miles up the valley to this other site."
