week
/wiːk/noun, interjection
week is spelled W-E-E-K: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 363 times per million words in written English, the 250th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “weak vs week” about 1,000 times a month (Google, United States). As a noun, week means “Any period of seven consecutive days” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of week is weeks.
How many letters and syllables are in week?
| Letters | 4: W-E-E-K |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 |
| In writing | 363 times per million words; the 250th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How common is week?
Week appears 363 times per million words in written English, the 250th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce week?
- /wiːk/
- [ˈwɪi̯k]
Week has one syllable.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-a_week.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_(NaomiAmethyst)-week.wav, En-us-week.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with week
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: weak (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
Forms of week
- weeks plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does week mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Any period of seven consecutive days.
Holonyms: megasecond < fortnight < month < year < gigasecond < century < kiloannum, kiloyear, millennium < terasecond < mega-annum, megayear < petasecond < giga-annum, gigayear < exasecond < zettasecond < yottasecond < ronnasecond < quettas
- 2
A period of seven days beginning with Sunday or Monday.
- 3
A period of five days beginning with Monday.
- 4
A subdivision of the month into longer periods of work days punctuated by shorter weekend periods of days for markets, rest, or religious observation such as a sabbath.
A 4-day week consists of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
- 5
A date seven days after (sometimes before) the specified day.
I'll see you Thursday week. [a week on Thursday, i.e. Thursday after next]
interjection
- 1
The squeal of a pig.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate week?
Wiktionary records 2 abbreviations of week: wk, wk..
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Week in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense period of seven days:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does week come from?
From Middle English wyke, weke, from Old English wice, wucu (“week”), from Proto-West Germanic *wikā, from Proto-Germanic *wikǭ (“sequence; week”), from Proto-Indo-European *weyg-, *weyk- (“to bend, curve”). Related to weak and dialectal English wick (“corner”); see Proto-Germanic *wīk(w)aną (“to bend, yield, cease”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).