sb. and a. [Combination of EVERY and DAY.]
A. sb. † a. Each day in continued succession. b. dial. A week-day, as opposed to Sunday.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Boeth., II. ii. 33. O þou man wher fore makest þou me gilty by þine euerydayes pleynynges.
1888. Elworthy, W. Somerset Word-bk., s.v., Oh! I keeps they for Sundays, I don’ put ’em on ’pon everydays.
Mod. Sc. Ask him for an every-day, he cannot come on a Sunday. Sunday and every-day are alike to him.
B. attrib., passing into adj.
1. Of or pertaining to every day, daily; also, pertaining alike to Sundays and week-days.
1647. Saltmarsh, Spark. Glory (1847), 170. His fulness lives in an eternal every-day sabbath, while some live in little more than … one day in the week.
1648. Hammond, Wks., IV. (1684), 508. An every-day care for the drying up of the great fountain of Leprosie in the Heart.
1796. Lamb, Lett. to Coleridge, in Life, ii. 16. I am heartily sick of the every-day scenes of life.
1804. Bp. Lincoln, in G. Rose’s Diaries (1860), II. 85. I do not doubt but you want constant every-day debaters.
1857. Livingstone, Trav., Introd. 6, note. Make religion the every-day business of your life.
1861. Flor. Nightingale, Nursing, 95. The everyday management of a sick room.
1880. Muirhead, trans. Instit. Gaius, 591. Voluntary sale of a slave was of everyday occurrence.
1888. Elworthy, W. Somerset Word-bk., s.v., An ‘every-day horse’ is one that can work all the week long … not like a Parson’s horse, which can only work Sundays.
2. Of articles of dress: Worn on ordinary days or week-days, as opposed to Sundays or high-days. Also fig. Every-day self.
1632. Massinger, City Madam, I. i. (1658), 2. There are a few great Ladies going to a Masque That do out-shine ours [fashions] in their every-day habits.
1824. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. I. (1858), 215. The every-day ribands were coloured.
1890. Dickens, Old C. Shop, xiii. Mr. Quilp invested himself in his every-day garments.
1883. H. H. Kane, in Harper’s Mag., Nov., 945/2. I seemed to have left my every-day self in the … vestibule.
3. To be met with every day; common, ordinary. Of persons and their attributes: Commonplace, mediocre, inferior. Also every-day-world adj.
a. 1763. Shenstone, Ess., Wks. 1765, II. 163 (T.). Men of genius forget things of common concern, unimportant facts and circumstances, which make no slight impression in every-day minds.
1781. Johnson, L. P., Akenside. This was no every-day writer.
1791. Boswell, Johnson (1831), IV. 19. Every-day knowledge had the most of his just praise.
1817. Coleridge, Biog., 202. Persons of no every-day powers and acquirements.
1845. J. H. Newman, Ess. Developm., 249. Her every-day name … was the ‘Catholic’ Church.
1847. Alb. Smith, Chr. Tadpole, xxxii. (1879), 277. [She] had shrunk from the every-day people in the parlour of the public-house.
1862. Burton, Bk.-Hunter, 5. The vulgar everyday-world way of putting the idea.
1868. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), II. viii. 287. Treason is spoken of as an everyday matter.
1871. Mad. Simple’s Invest., iii. in Harper’s Mag., XLII. 449/1. People who have a cook who has cooked for Milord Plumpudding ought not to dine like everyday folks.
Hence Everydayness, rare.
1840. Lowell, Love, Poet. Wks. (1879), 82. The every-dayness of this work-day world.
1876. Mrs. Whitney, Sights & Ins., xxiv. Nice, jolly every-dayness.
