is there a word for daily or weekly anniversaries?

May 20, 2009 9:55 PM

latinfilter: My turkey poults arrived at my house two weeks ago today. How can I express the special meaning of this day with one word? I am looking for a word that is equivalent to 'anniversary', but for weeks instead of years.

Online dictionaries tell me that 'anniversary' is derived from the latin "anniversarius; annus year + vertere, versum, to turn". I tried to look up the latin equivalent for 'week' and the online translator just spits back 'week' (although it came up with the correct translation for 'day' and 'year')

"anniversary week" has an established and completely different meaning.

Saying "second week anniversary" is unsatisfying because of the implied 'annus' on the front of anniversay. Second week yearly turn?

Is there a word for what I want to express?

And while I'm at it, is there an equivalent word for 'birthday' which implies the passage of years, but which instead covers a period of weeks or months?

posted by csw to writing & language (11 comments total)

It's not as clever as I think you're looking for, but my best friend and her husband use the standard, "weekaversary," and "monthaversary."
posted by litterateur at 10:04 PM on May 20

Many pardons. I did not immediately notice that you are looking for Latin transliteration.
posted by litterateur at 10:06 PM on May 20

possibly septimana-versary (via this blog which is called "This week" in latin.
posted by singingfish at 10:32 PM on May 20

Your difficulties in your search may stem from the fact that the Roman calendar did not have weeks as we know them. However, since the Romans went around conquering people who did use weeks, they seem to have come up with at least one Latin word that I could find that expresses the concept: hebdomas, hebdomadis, a word that persists in later Latin, where Holy Week is Hebdomada Sancta and a hebdomadarius is one who performs certain duties within their order for the week.

On the basis of my research, then, I propose the awful mouthful hebdomadariversary, although it's quite possible that someone with more formal knowledge of Latin may be able to correct me on the proper formation of such a word. Either way, I hope your turkeys appreciate it!
posted by mayhap at 10:49 PM on May 20

Turkeyversary. Plus it's fun to say. Try it!

Turkeyversary. Turkeyversary. Turkeyversary.

Now I want to get turkeys.
posted by smartyboots at 10:56 PM on May 20 [2 favorites]

I found this translation, which puts it as hebdomas, and searching latin wikipedia gives an article which lists days of the week, so I think that might be what you're looking for.
posted by alygator at 10:56 PM on May 20

Actually, litterateur, I am looking for the english word. Thanks for your help. I only cite the latin derivation as a way of perhaps deriving a similar word for "weekaversary" and "monthaversary"

And thank you, mayhap and alygator. I had recalled that the french have a great word for weekly - "hebdomadaire". Now I know where that word comes from.

Having tried to say hebdomadariversary, hebdomadariversary, hebdomadariversary three times fast, I now know why there isn't a common latin-derived word for this concept.
posted by csw at 12:33 AM on May 21

Can we see a picture of the turkeys?
posted by applemeat at 3:37 AM on May 21

Oh, well then for English, how about fortnight-aversary?
posted by alygator at 6:33 AM on May 21

Fortnight adapted to Latin? Why "fortnox", of course.
posted by dinger at 10:23 AM on May 21

applemeat: Can we see a picture of the turkeys?

Sure can. Go HERE.
posted by csw at 10:00 PM on May 21