all day
∞
1.0
- adverb
:
todo el día
- I haven't eaten a thing all day.
- all day long
- work all day
- sit all day
We like to cry all day, shag all night.
- We like to cry all day, shag all night.
- All they do is sit online all day, watch stuff.
- It's all in there all day, all day, every day.
- I was waiting for you to call me all day and you didn't.
- And he hasn't stopped crying all day, all day.
- I had spent all day not talking at all.
- So if you're driving a truck all day, that's all you have.
- We laid in bed all day, slept all day.
- Yes, because he's been so excited all day about this.
Examples
-
I can watch this all day to be a winner.
-
Because we can dance all day if you want to.
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I have spent almost all day with this.
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All they do is sit online all day, watch stuff.
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I had spent all day not talking at all.
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This has been on all day and so far so good.
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When we first started doing this, it took all day to make one frame.
Academic text (1991) -
Wow, I could talk to you all day, Mike, I'm having fun.
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We have been driving all day through Alabama.
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I was waiting for you to call me all day and you didn't.
Synonyms
193
1.0
During the whole day without stopping
1
2.5
All the time without stopping
How Long
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'for the entire duration of the day' is directly and compositionally derived from combining 'all' (the whole) with 'day' (a period of daytime/24 hours); this quantifier + time-noun pattern is transparent and cross-linguistically common. A B1 learner who knows both constituent words can reliably infer the MWE meaning without prior exposure.
Etymology
All day comes from the simple image of doing something for all of the day, from morning until night. So if you say you did something all day, you mean 'continuously' or 'for the entire day'.