† 1. A day of the week. (In quot. c. 1200 a literal as opposed to a metaphorical day.) Obs.
c. 900. trans. Bæda’s Hist., III. v. Þæt hi þy feorðan wicdæʓe & þy syxtan fæstan to nones.
c. 1200. Ormin, 13182. Alls itt off þiss werrldess daȝȝ Rihht onnfasst efenn wære, Forrþi þatt ure wukedaȝȝ Bi twellfe timess erneþþ [etc.].
a. 1300. Cursor M., 2857. Sir loth wijf … in a salt stan men seis hir stand þat bestes likes o þat land, þat anes o þe wok day, þan es sco liked al a-way.
1456. Sir G. Haye, Law Arms (S.T.S.), 166. [They] do mare the Sonday or the haly day na othir wolk dayes.
† 2. A day of the week other than market-day or Sunday. Obs.
1477. in Charters, etc. Edin. (1871), 141. The nolt merket … [to be held] about the Trone,… and nocht on the wolk day.
1588. in G. P. Scrope, Castle Combe (1852), 332. That none shall bye any grayne or other vittell on our markett-daye before nyne of the clocke in the fore-none, nor in the wicke-dayes more then shall serve their owne howsolde.
3. A day of the week other than Sunday.
c. 1546. Coverdale, Calvin’s Treat. Sacram., etc., F j b. In lyk maner as thou seist this blessed sacrament ministred on the sonday, euen so wyth lyke reuerence do they vse it at the same houre on those wyke dayes, that the congregacyon … hath appointed to that vse.
1563. Homilies, Of Place & Time of Prayer, I. II. 139. For although they wyll not trauayle nor labour on the Sunday, as they do on the weeke day, yet they wyll not rest in holynes.
1593. in Maitl. Club Misc., I. 57. That … wpone the oulk dayes thai begin at viij houris and end preciselie at ix houris.
1633. G. Herbert, Temple, Sunday, ix. Thou art a day of mirth! And where the week-dayes trail on ground, Thy flight is higher.
1654. J. Audland, in Jrnl. Friends’ Hist. Soc. (1919), XVI. 135. I have been in Bristoll severall first dayes … and I have gone into the Countrey, in the Weekdayes.
1732. Swift, etc., What passed in London, Misc. III. 263. My Wife and I went to Church (where we had not been for many Years on a Week-day).
1835. Dickens, Sk. Boz, Seven-Dials. Pass through St. Giles’s in the evening of a week-day, there they are in their fustian dresses.
1860. Sat. Rev., 3 March, 277/2. His [sc. Spurgeon’s] father was a hard-working man on week-days, and a preacher on Sundays.
b. attrib.
[1595. in Maitl. Club Misc., I. 72. In the oulk dayes preiching in Glasgw, it is desyrit that the ministeris keip preciselie the hour.]
1693. O. Heywood, Diaries (1885), IV. 147. That house where the week-day lecture had been kept.
1732. Pope, Ep. Bathurst, 345. One solid dish his week-day meal affords, An added pudding solemniz’d the Lord’s.
1762. Secker, 2nd Charge Dioc. Canterb. (1771), 253. Diligence … in bringing your People to the holy Communion, and where it can be, to Week-Day Prayers.
1802. Wordsw., Sonn. ‘I grieved for Buonaparte.’ The talk Man holds with week-day man in the hourly walk Of the mind’s business.
1859. Geo. Eliot, Adam Bede, lii. He knew nothing of week-day services, and thought none the worse of the Sunday sermon if it allowed him to sleep from the text to the blessing.
1877. A. Maclaren (title), Week-day Evening Addresses.
