weekdayvsweeklyWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: weekday is a noun, weekly is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“weekday” is a noun and “weekly” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#19,502
“weekday” frequency rank
#2,653
“weekly” frequency rank
22155
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature weekday weekly
Definition Any individual day of the week, except those which form the weekend or the single weekly day off; that is: Once every week.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set weekday and weekly apart are highlighted. They share 5 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

7 ch
weekday
6 ch
weekly

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

weekday and weekly form a confusable pair in the English index, two distinct headwords that are easily confused because they look alike, sound alike, or both. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length - close enough that the eye skips over the difference, far enough that meaning fully diverges. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22155, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

weekday is recorded at frequency rank #19,502, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈwiːkdeɪ/. weekly is at rank #2,653, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ˈwiːk.li/.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 22155, this pair ranks #418,663 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Frequency comparison

weekday#19,502
weekly#2,653

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "weekday" and "weekly" be used interchangeably?
No, "weekday" and "weekly" have distinct meanings and cannot be swapped without changing the meaning of a sentence. Understanding the specific definition and context for each word is essential for correct usage.

Remembering weekday vs weekly

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “weekday”; for an adverb, it's “weekly”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “weekday” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list