Fortnight

Fortnight is the time period of 14 days. The term itself originates from fourteen + nights. Hence, the time period of 14 nights or 2 weeks is considered as a fortnight. Examples of a fortnight, when used in a sentence, are as follows:

• I need your bike for a fortnight.

• We spent a fortnight in search of a home.

There is also a word sennight and it means a time period of seven nights. Words as sennight and fortnight appear to be leftover from ancient Germanic calendars which were known to reckon time not by days—but by nights.

Fortnight Definitions

According to the Cambridge dictionary, fortnight means, “a period of two weeks is called fortnight”.

According to the oxford dictionary, it’s a noun and fortnight meaning, “A fortnight is a period of two weeks”.

Fortnight Meaning

A fortnight can start from any day of the week. Refer to the following for starting and ending days of a fortnight. 

Fun fact

There is a word similar to a fortnight that has some interesting meaning. Students usually mistype fortnight to Fortnite which takes them into a completely different genre. Fortnite meaning comes from the contraction of fort and nite. It is an online video game, “save the world” mode. In this game, players have to construct forts and other players structures to protect against monsters who invade at night. The word nite comes from here itself. It is informal but fancy which is required when you name a game.

Additional Information

According to Hindu mythology, a fortnight is called paksha. According to the Hindi calendar, there are two pakshas in a month. Krishna paksha and Shukla paksha. Krishna paksha refers to the dark lunar fortnight or waning moon. Whereas Shukla paksha refers to a bright lunar fortnight of the waxing moon. Krishna paksha ends with Amavasya and Shukla paksha ends with Purnima. Days of Krishna paksha and Shukla paksha are as follows: