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For other uses, see Week (disambiguation),
Weeks (disambiguation), and Weekly
(disambiguation).

A week is a time unit equal to seven days. It is

the standard time period used for cycles of rest
days in most parts of the world, mostly
alongside—although not strictly part of—the
Gregorian calendar.

An Italian cameo bracelet representing the days of

the week by their eponymous deities (mid-19th
century, Walters Art Museum)

Circular diagrams showing the division of the day and

of the week, from a Carolingian ms. (Clm 14456 fol.
71r) of St. Emmeram Abbey. The week is divided into
seven days, and each day into 24 hours, 96 puncta
(quarter-hours), 240 minuta (tenths of an hour) and
960 momenta (40th parts of an hour).

In many languages, the days of the week are

named after classical planets or gods of a
pantheon. In English, the names are Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
Saturday, and Sunday, then returning to
Monday. Such a week may be called a
planetary week.[1] Occasionally, this
arrangement is instead similar to a week in the
New Testament in which the seven days are
simply numbered with the first day being a
Christian day of worship (aligned with Sunday,
offset from ISO 8601 by one day) and the
seventh day being a sabbath day (Saturday).
This is based on the Jewish week as reflected
in the Hebrew Bible (also appears as the Old
Testament in the Christian Bible). The Hebrew
Bible offers the explanation that God created
the world in six days. The first day is then given
the literal name First (in Hebrew: ‫)ראשון‬, the
second being called Second (‫ )שני‬and so forth
for the first six days, with the exception of the
seventh and final day, which rather than be
called Seventh (‫)שביעי‬, is called Shabbat (‫)שבת‬
from the word ‫( לשבות‬to rest). The biblical text
states this is because that was the day when
God rested from his work of creating the world.
Shabbat (equivalent to Saturday) therefore
became the day of worship and rest in Jewish
tradition and the last day of the week, while the
following day, Sunday, is the first one in the
Hebrew week. Thousands of years later, these
names are still the names of the weekdays in
Hebrew, and this week construct is still the one
observed in Jewish tradition.

While, for example, the United States, Canada,

Brazil, Israel, Japan and other countries
consider Sunday as the first day of the week,
and while the week begins with Saturday in
much of the Middle East, the international ISO
8601 standard[a] and most of Europe has
Monday as the first day of the week.[2] The
Geneva-based ISO standards organization
uses Monday as the first day of the week in its
ISO week date system.

The term "week" is sometimes expanded to

refer to other time units comprising a few days,
such as the nundinal cycle of the ancient
Roman calendar, the "work week" or "school
week" referring only to the days spent on those
activities.

Name

Definition and duration

Days of the week

History

Numbering

"Weeks" in other
calendars

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

Last edited 1 month ago by Indefatig…

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