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Illustration: the history of the word Saturday
Satursilentday
A sound people stopped saying

Saturday: the only day that kept its Roman god

Saturday is Saturn's day — the one English weekday still named for a Roman god. Plus why Americans say "SAD-er-day" with a soft, tapped T.

Then · Old English

Sæternesdæg

said like SAH-ter-nes-dai

Middle English (1100s-1400s)↓

Now · American English

Saturday/ˈsætɚdeɪ/

said SAD-er-day

The story

Every other English weekday swapped its Roman god for a Germanic one. Saturday did not. Old English borrowed the Latin Saturni dies, "day of Saturn", almost unchanged, as Sæternesdæg: "Saturn's day". Saturn was the Roman god of farming and of a lost golden age, and there was no obvious Germanic match for him — so the Romans kept this one.

Dutch has the same borrowing (zaterdag). The Romance languages went the other way and renamed the day after the Jewish Sabbath: French samedi, Spanish sábado — and German Samstag comes from the same Sabbath root.

In English the long Old English form wore down over the Middle English period: Sæternes- lost its "-nes-" and shrank to Satur-, leaving three syllables where there had been five.

How the word changed

  1. 1

    Latin

    Saturni dies

    "Day of Saturn".

  2. 2

    Old English (before 1100)

    Sæternesdæg

    Borrowed, god and all: "Saturn's day".

  3. 3

    Middle English (1100-1500)

    Saterday, Saturday

    The middle syllables wear down.

  4. 4

    American English

    Saturday

    The T is flapped: SAD-er-day.

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Questions people ask

+Why is Saturday named after a Roman god when the other days aren't?

Germanic speakers replaced Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus with their own gods, but had no clear counterpart for Saturn, so they kept the Roman name.

+Why do Americans say "Sadderday"?

Because American English flaps a T between vowels when the syllable before it is stressed — the same tap you hear in water, city and better.

More words with a story

SundaySUN-day

Sunday is the sun's day, from Old English Sunnandæg. Its vowel moved from "oo" to "uh" — and son, spelled with an O, ended up sounding the same.

FridayFRY-day

Friday is named for Frig, the Germanic goddess matched with Venus. Its I once sounded like "ee" — the Great Vowel Shift turned it into "eye".

Part of

Saturday: the only day that kept its Roman god