Let’s continue our dive into the names for days of the week! In the case of Thursday, it at once follows the same pattern, naming the day after the god whose celestial body’s hour was the first hour of the day in the Neo-Babylonion empire (days were broken up into seven hours, so each day began with a new hour), but also again mixed in is some Norse mythology.

See, in those ancient calendars, this fifth day of the week was named for Zeus or, by Roman days, Jupiter. If you’re at all familiar with ancient mythology, you may remember that Zeus/Jupiter is usually denoted with lightning bolts in his hand. So who in Germanic/Norse mythology would be the equivalent?

Why, your friendly neighborhood Thor, of course!

So our English translation and eventual contraction of “Thor’s Day” is Thursday. (Side note: thunder is actually also a direct borrow from Thor!)

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Let’s continue our dive into the names for days of the week! In the case of Tuesday, it at once follows the same pattern, naming the day after the god whose celestial body’s hour was the first hour of the day in the Neo-Babylonion empire (days were broken up into seven hours, so each day began with a new hour.)

In the case of Tuesday, however, it isn’t quite as one-to-one as Sunday (after the sun) and Monday (after the moon) in our English translation.

In that ancient empire, the third day of the week was named for Mars, the planet closest to earth and the god of war. There are plenty of languages that reflect this still, like French’s Mardi.

In Middle English, the word for this day of the week was spelled Tiues-dai. That was, in turn, taken from Old English tiwesdaeg. The Tiwes here is the possessive form of Tiu, who was the god war in Germanic mythology. Interestingly, though, while this ancient god is the equivalent of Mars in many ways, unlike Mars in Roman mythology, Tiu was the supreme god in German mythology, so the name itself is actually more closely related to Zeus.

We already covered Wednesday, so next week, we’ll jump to Thursday!

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If you already read last week’s word about why the first day of the week is named after the sun, this week’s might be a little boring. But in case you’re coming here fresh JUST for this word, I’m going to include the same generaly history. 😉 So…why is the second day of the week Monday?

First: Monday = Moonday

The Middle English was spelled Monedai and the Old English was mōndæg, which was itself a contraction of mōnandæg (monan meaning “moon”).

The tradition, though, is even more ancient. Scholars believe the astronomical naming of days goes back to the Neo-Babylonian empire, dating to around the time of the Jewish exile in Babylon, though the first written record of the system is from the Roman empire era.

In this naming system, each day is broken up into seven hours, and each hour given the name of a prominent god after whom a celestial body was named. The first hour of each day gave that day its name.

Sunday, therefore, is named after the sun because that day of the week began with the hour of the sun. Monday, on the other hand, began with the hour of the moon–the second in the list of celestial-deities.

Many languages still preserve this tradition. For instance, in French, the word for Monday is Lundi, given that lune is the word for moon.

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Why is the first day of the week named for the sun?

The answer is fairly ancient. Scholars believe the astronomical naming of days goes back to the Neo-Babylonian empire, dating to around the time of the Jewish exile in Babylon, though the first written record of the system is from the Roman empire era.

In this naming system, each day is broken up into seven hours, and each hour given the name of a prominent god after whom a celestial body was named. The first hour of each day gave that day its name.

Sunday, therefore, is named after the sun because that day of the week began with the hour of the sun.

This naming system is quite extensive throughout the world, and it came to English via the Germanic language. It’s interesting to note, however, that other European languages without Germanic influence have instead chosen a name for this first day of the week that means “the Lord’s Day.”

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This one comes courtesy of my husband, who thought festoon was a fun-sounding word probably related to festive, so declared “Word of the Week!” (A common declaration in our house, LOL.)

And indeed, not surprisingly, festoon and festive both share that same root of “feast.” Festoon joined the English language around 1620 as a noun meaning “a string or chain of flowers or ribbons suspended between two points.” Our word comes from the French feston, which comes in turn from the Italian festone, which could mean any festive ornament. All of those, not surprisingly, are from the Latin festa, meaning “feast.”

I found it interesting that the noun came first with that very particular definition of what kind of ornament it was for. The verb form, which is what I’m primarily familiar with the word as, came about in 1789.

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