everyday

adj, noun — 6 senses

everyday

adj

/ˈɛvɹiˌdeɪ/

Etymology From Middle English everidayes, every daies, every dayes (“everyday, daily, continual, constant”, adjective, literally “every day's”), equivalent to every + day.

1

Appropriate for ordinary use, rather than for special occasions.

  • 1906, Edith Nesbit, The Railway Children, Chapter 4: The engine-burglar, When they had gone, Bobbie put on her everyday frock, and went down to the railway.
2

Commonplace, ordinary.

  • Then you came in. I heard your rumbling voice Out in the kitchen, and I don't know why, But I went near to see with my own eyes. You could sit there with the stains on your shoes Of the fresh earth from your own baby's grave And talk about your everyday concerns.[…]2003, Robert Pack, Belief and Uncertainty in the Poetry of Robert Frost (Middlebury College press), UPNE, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 110:
  • Although it is an everyday virus, there is something about influenza that inspires awe.2010, Malcolm Knox, The Monthly, April 2010, Issue 55, The Monthly Ptd Ltd, page 42
1 more example
  • By 2025, of course, Trump and Miller were back in the White House, pursuing a campaign promise to “remigrate” millions of everyday people out of America.2025 June 14, Christopher Mathias, “JD Vance threatened to deport him. The ‘menswear guy’ is posting through it”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 01 Jul 2025:
3

Literally Present or recurring every day.

  • For Everyday Recording / For example: Programme time for timer recording every day from 20:00–22:45 on timer programme number 7. Programming for everyday recording can be made on any of the timer programme numbers 1–7. […] For Everyweek Recording / For Example: Programming a timer recording for a TV programme that is broadcast every week on Sunday, from 20:00 to 22:45.[1987], “Timer Recording”, in Operating Instructions: Video Cassette Recorder, NV-G25 Series, Central Osaka: Matsushita Electric Trading Co., Ltd., page 21:
  • “What kind of place do you live in! Every time we turn around, somebody else is getting killed!” / “Believe me, it’s not an everyday occurrence.” An everyweek occurrence lately, however.1993, Katherine Hall Page, The Body in the Cast (The Beeler Large Print Mystery Series), Hampton Falls, N.H.: Beeler Large Print, published 1999, →ISBN, page 207:
2 more examples
  • It’s not an everyday, or even an everyweek, event, but nowadays you can sometimes see young couples kissing goodbye at street corners and train stations.1994 November 9, T[homas] R[oy] Reid, “Some Japanese Kiss in Public; Their Elders Are Shocked . . . Shocked!”, in The Philadelphia Inquirer; reprinted in Mark Hutter, “[Mate Selection] Mate Selection in Feudal and Contemporary Japan”, in The Changing Family, 3rd edition, Needham Heights, Mass.: Allyn & Bacon, 1998, →ISBN, page 268, column 1:
  • We hope this becomes an ‘everyday’ book in your kitchen – or at least an ‘everyweek’ book.2005, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Fizz Carr, The River Cottage Family Cookbook, London: Hodder & Stoughton, →ISBN, page 11:
4

Rare Commonplace or ordinary during daytime.

  • This was an everyday and everynight scene a couple of decades ago.1931, Jack While, Fifty Years of Fire Fighting in London, London: Hutchinson & Co. (Publishers), Ltd., page 18:
  • It calls for methods of thinking, of writing texts, and of investigation that expand and extend our knowledge of how our everyday/everynight worlds are put together, determined and shaped as they are by forces and powers beyond our practical and direct knowledge.1992, Patricia Connelly, Pat Armstrong, editors, Feminism in Action: Studies in Political Economy, Toronto, Ont.: Canadian Scholars’ Press, →ISBN, pages 16–17:
1 more example
  • The locus of emancipatory hopes shifts from everyday to everynight life.1997, Celeste Fraser Delgado, José Esteban Muñoz, “Rebellions of Everynight Life”, in Celeste Fraser Delgado, José Esteban Muñoz, editors, Everynight Life: Culture and Dance in Latin/o America, Duke University Press, →ISBN, page 20:
Derived terms
everyday carry, everyday life, everydayness, everydays, everyday skill, everydaywear

everyday

noun

Etymology From Middle English everidayes, every daies, every dayes (“everyday, daily, continual, constant”, adjective, literally “every day's”), equivalent to every + day.

1

Obsolete Literally every day in succession, or every day but Sunday.

2

Rare The ordinary or routine day or occasion.

  • Putting away the tableware for everyday, a chore which is part of the everyday.

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.