Proper noun

Singular Saturday

Plural Saturdays

Saturday (plural Saturdays)

1. The seventh day of the week in the USA, and the sixth day of the week in Europe and in systems using the ISO 8601 norm; the Biblical seventh day of the week, observed as Sabbath or "Day of Rest"; it follows Friday and precedes Sunday.

Saturday (pronounced /ˈsætərdeɪ/ in the United States or /ˈsætədɪ/ ( listen) in England ) is the day of the week between Friday and Sunday. Saturday is considered either the sixth or seventh day of the week.

It was named no later than the second century for the planet (Saturn), which controlled the first hour of that day according to Vettius Valens. The planet was named for the Roman god of agriculture Saturn (Latin Saturnus). It has been called dies Saturni ("Saturn's Day"), through which form it entered into Old English as Sæternesdæg and gradually evolved into the word "Saturday".

Saturday is the only day of the week in which the English name comes from Roman mythology. The English names of all of the other days of the week come from Germanic polytheism. In India, Saturday is Shanivar, based on Shani, the Vedic god manifested in the planet Saturn. In the Thai solar calendar of Thailand, the day is named from the Pali word for Saturn, and the color associated with Saturday is purple. The Celtic languages also name this day for Saturn: Irish an Satharn or dia Sathuirn, Scottish Gaelic Disathairne, Welsh dydd Sadwrn, Breton Sadorn or disadorn.

In Jewish Law, Saturday is the seventh day, Shabbat. Thus, in many languages the Saturday is named after the Sabbath. Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches distinguish between Saturday (Sabbath) and the Lord's Day (Sunday). Some Protestants call Sunday the Sabbath (see Sabbath in Christianity). Quakers traditionally refer to Saturday as "Seventh Day", eschewing the "pagan" origin of the name. In Islamic countries, Fridays are holidays, but they are considered as the sixth day of the week.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church Saturdays are days on which the Theotokos (Mother of God) and All Saints are commemorated, The day is also a general day of prayer for the dead, because it was on a Saturday that Jesus lay dead in the tomb. The Octoechos contains hymns on these themes, arranged in an eight-week cycle, that are chanted on Saturdays throughout the year. At the end of services on Saturday, the dismissal begins with the words: "May Christ our True God, through the intercessions of his most-pure Mother, of the holy, glorious and right victorious Martyrs, of our reverend and God-bearing Fathers…". For the Orthodox, Saturday--with the sole exception of Holy Saturday--is never a strict fast day. When a Saturday falls during one of the fasting seasons (Great Lent, Nativity Fast, Apostles' Fast, Dormition Fast) the fasting rules are always lessened to an extent. The Great Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross and the Beheading of St. John the Baptist are normally observed as strict fast days, but if they fall on a Saturday or Sunday, the fast is lessened.

In Scandinavian countries, Saturday is called Lördag or Laurdag, the name being derived from the old word laugr/laug (hence Icelandic name Laugardagur), meaning bath, thus Lördag equates to bath-day. This is due to the Viking practice of bathing on Saturdays.

Today, Saturday is officially called Samstag in all German-speaking countries, but there it has two names in modern Standard German. Samstag is always used in Austria, Liechtenstein, and the German speaking part of Switzerland, and generally used in southern and western Germany. It derives from Old High German sambaztac, which itself derives from Greek Σάββατο, and this Greek word derives from Hebrew שבת (Shabbat). However, the current German word for sabbath is Sabbat. The second name for Saturday in German is Sonnabend, which derives from Old High German sunnunaband, and is closely related to the Old English word sunnanæfen. It means literally "Sun eve", i.e., "The day before Sunday". Sonnabend is generally used in northern and eastern Germany, and was also the official name for Saturday in East Germany. In the Westphalian dialects of Low Saxon, in East Frisian Low Saxon and in the Saterland Frisian language, Saturday is called Satertag, also akin to Dutch Zaterdag, which has the same linguistic roots as the English word Saturday.

All Slavic languages derive their name for Saturday from the name for the Sabbath: (Czech/Slovak/Polish/Slovene: sobota; Russian: суббота subbota, Serbian/Ukrainian субота subota). A similar numbering trend is also exhibited by the Baltic languages.

Similarly, the Romance languages follow the Greek usage, so that their word for "Saturday" is also a variation on "Sabbath": the Italian is sabato, the French is samedi, the Spanish and Portuguese is sábado and the Romanian is sâmbătă.

The modern Maori name for it, Rahoroi, literally means "washing-day" - a vestige of early colonized life when Māori converts would set aside time on the Saturday to wash their whites for Church on Sunday. A common alternative Māori name for Saturday is the transliteration Hatarei. For other languages, see Days of the week Planetary table.

The Chinese-based Korean word for Saturday is 토요일 (To-Yo-Il [meaning: Earth - day]) from the Chinese character 土 meaning Earth, or Ground.