Skip to main content
fortnight

fortnight

24 2.7
A period of fourteen days or two weeks
  • noun
  • /ˈfɔrtˌnaɪt/
  • UK
translation icon : dos semanas
  • I will visit my grandparents in the countryside for a fortnight this summer.
  • once a fortnight
  • fortnight later

Now those subsequent drops we've seen in the last fortnight mean the difference isn't quite so stark between that rate and the other three-year fixes.

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • Expect delivery of your purchase within a fortnight.

  • For the British, it caps a remarkable fortnight of naval triumphs.

  • Or that I only get to see my kid for two hours every fortnight or... -

  • The kings will be here in a fortnight.

  • Two boys from our year were expelled a fortnight later for just that crime.

    Fiction book (1997)
  • It's been a long fortnight since we've had a good drink.

  • Because I have to go to Avignon in a fortnight.

  • They should arrive within a fortnight.

  • Eleanor's waters broke a fortnight early when Buck was at a livestock conference in Houston.

    Fiction book (1998)
  • Duncan supposedly caught mackerel here a fortnight ago, and Dad's been tying his special flies all week.

    Fiction book (2002)

Synonyms

two weeks
vsfortnight
1.0

Fourteen days in a row

is the single word form used instead of the number phrase

How Long

year
1.0
season
1.0
month
1.0
fortnight
  • UK
24 2.7
week
1.0
day
1.0

Surface Forms

fortnight singular
fortnights plural

Morphology

fortnight = fourteen + night (semi-transparent) = fort + night

Historically a compound of 'fourteen' + 'night'; 'night' is clear but the initial element 'fort-' is a contracted form of 'fourteen' and not transparently linked to the modern word 'fourteen'.

Etymology

The word fortnight comes from old English parts four and night, so it literally means 'fourteen nights' and that is an easy way to remember it still means two weeks.