Days of the Week in Portuguese (and Why Monday Is Segunda-feira)

Ever wondered why Monday in Portuguese is segunda-feira, literally the "second fair"? The days of the week in Portuguese are one of the first things you learn in the language, and honestly one of the quirkiest. English names its days after the Sun, the Moon and a few Norse gods, but Portuguese weekdays are numbered and end in feira. So what does feira mean, and why do Portuguese days end in feira? The answer involves a 6th-century bishop, a church council and more than 1,400 years of history.

In this guide I'll walk you through the Portuguese days of the week the way we actually use them in Brazil: how to write, abbreviate and use them in a sentence, where feira comes from, how to say yesterday and tomorrow in Portuguese (plus the day before yesterday, the day after tomorrow and next week), how to fill in a date on a Brazilian form and even why so many of us wear white on Fridays. All with real examples, straight from a Brazilian.

The days of the week in Portuguese and English

The days of the week in Portuguese are domingo, segunda-feira, terça-feira, quarta-feira, quinta-feira, sexta-feira and sábado. From Monday to Friday, the name is an ordinal number (second, third, fourth...) followed by the word feira, while Saturday and Sunday stand on their own, with no number and no feira.

Sabadão and Domingão

In Brazilian Portuguese, it's very common to use the augmentative (the -ão ending that makes things "bigger") to talk about Saturday and Sunday, especially in casual speech:

• sábado → sabadão → a special, action-packed or long-awaited Saturday
• domingo → domingão → a special, long and fun Sunday

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The Brazilian Portuguese calendar

Notice one detail: Monday is the "second" day because, in this way of counting, the week starts on Sunday. And in everyday life almost nobody says the full word. In Brazil we'll tell you "Te vejo na segunda" (See you Monday), not "Te vejo na segunda-feira".

Here's a song by the Brazilian band "O Rappa" called "A Feira", which mentions some of the days of the week.

Are the days of the week masculine or feminine in Portuguese?

The days with feira are feminine because feira is a feminine noun, so we say a segunda, na terça, toda quarta. On the other hand, sábado and domingo are masculine: o sábado, no domingo. If you want to review this logic with other words, here's my guide to masculine and feminine in Portuguese.

• Bora bater um papo na sexta? (Want to chat on Friday?)
• Vou ficar em casa no domingo. (I'm going to stay home on Sunday.)
• Eu trabalho de segunda a sexta. (I work Monday through Friday.)

Why do Portuguese days end in "feira"?

Feira comes from the Latin feria, which meant "feast day" or "day of rest". In Church Latin, the days were counted starting from Sunday: feria secunda was Monday, feria tertia Tuesday, and so on up to feria sexta, Friday. Portuguese is practically the only Romance language that kept this system in everyday speech.

Martinho de Braga and the end of the pagan gods

The man behind this change was Martinho de Braga (also known as Martin of Dumio, or Martinho de Dume), a 6th-century bishop who wanted to get the pagan gods out of the calendar. The most popular version of the story says that around the year 563, during a church council in Braga, it was decided that the days could no longer honor the Moon, Mars or Venus. That story is true in essence, but with a nuance: what is actually documented is that Martinho, in his text De correctione rusticorum, criticized the peasants who kept calling the days by the names of those gods. The exact date and the role of the council come more from tradition than from an official document. Since Braga was in the region that later became Portugal, the change stuck in Portuguese.

If feria means rest, why do only workdays have feira?

It's the question we all ask, and the answer lies in Easter week. During that week, every day was a day of rest for Christians, in other words, they were all feriae. Since Sunday already had its own name (dies Dominicus, the Lord's day) and so did Saturday (sabbatum, from the Hebrew shabbat), only the five days in between got numbered: feria secunda, feria tertia and so on. Over time, that model spread to every week of the year, whether people worked or not.

And here's a bonus: since people took advantage of religious feast days to buy and sell, feira also ended up meaning market. That's why in Brazil today we go to the feira to buy fruit and vegetables.

Days of the week in Portuguese and English: where each name comes from

In English, the days honor the Sun, the Moon, Saturn and a handful of Norse gods, and Spanish, French and Italian do something similar with the planets and Roman gods. Take a look at the comparison and you'll see why Portuguese is the big exception:

Is Tuesday in Portuguese "terceira-feira" or terça-feira?

The correct form is terça-feira. Even though it looks like terceiro/terceira (third), terça is the word used to name this day of the week: segunda-feira → terça-feira → quarta-feira → quinta-feira → sexta-feira.

"Terceira-feira" doesn't exist as the name of a day in Brazilian Portuguese.

Terça vs Terço

Speaking of terça, you might remember another very similar word: terço. In Portuguese, terço is the rosary, the Catholic prayer that also got this name because it's linked to a third of the complete rosary.

So you can use the similarity to help you remember:

• terça-feira - Tuesday
• terço - rosary
  Heads-up: they look alike in writing, but they don't mean the same thing and they aren't interchangeable.

How to say yesterday, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow in Portuguese

To talk about nearby days in Portuguese we use ontem (yesterday), anteontem (the day before yesterday), hoje (today), amanhã (tomorrow) and depois de amanhã (the day after tomorrow). For weeks, the most common ones are semana passada, semana retrasada and semana que vem.

Watch out for two traps. The first one: amanhã means tomorrow (the next day), but manhã means morning (the time of day). So "tomorrow morning" in Portuguese is amanhã de manhã. The second one is sneaky for English speakers: "the other week" in English usually means a couple of weeks ago, but in Brazil na outra almost always points forward, to the week after next.

A grammar tip: with semana que vem we usually use the future tense in Portuguese with ir + infinitive, as in Vou viajar semana que vem (I'm going to travel next week).

Abbreviations of the days of the week in Portuguese and English

The abbreviations of the days of the week in Portuguese use the first three letters of each name: SEG, TER, QUA, QUI, SEX, SÁB and DOM. You'll see them on calendars, in apps and on business hours signs. It's also common to see the days written with ordinal numbers, like 2ª, 3ª or 6ª.

How do you say "business hours" in Portuguese?

In Portuguese, there are several ways to say it that you'll find on signs, in stores and in all kinds of businesses:

• horário de atendimento - customer service hours
• horário de funcionamento - opening hours
• horário comercial - business hours
• horário de expediente - office hours or working hours

On a store sign it's normal to read Aberto de seg. a sáb. (Open Monday to Saturday) or Atendimento de 2ª a 6ª (Open Monday to Friday). And relax, SEX here just means Friday.

If you like these short forms, also check out these Brazilian Portuguese acronyms and abbreviations.

How to write the date in Portuguese: the DD/MM/AAAA format

In Brazil the date is written in the DD/MM/AAAA format, that is, day, month and year, the opposite of the US MM/DD/YYYY. So March 15 is 15/03, not 03/15. The letters change too: on Brazilian forms the year shows up as AAAA because "year" in Portuguese is ano.

On a form you'll write something like Data de nascimento: 15/03/1990. Written out in full it would be 15 de março de 1990, with the month in lowercase, just like the days (unlike English, where both are capitalized). And when speaking, the normal thing is something like Hoje é segunda, dia 15 (Today is Monday the 15th).

What does "dia sim, dia não" mean in Portuguese?

Dia sim, dia não literally means "one day yes, one day no", in other words, every other day. The same structure works with other words, like semana sim, semana não (every other week).

• Eu vou à academia dia sim, dia não. (I go to the gym every other day.)
• Rego as plantas dia sim, dia não. (I water the plants every other day.)
• Ela trabalha de casa semana sim, semana não. (She works from home every other week.)

List of phrases only Brazilians understand

Sextou, sabadou, domingou: when the days become verbs

In informal Brazilian Portuguese we turn the days into verbs ending in -ar and use them in the past tense. For example, sextou means something like "It's Friday!", with all the excitement of the weekend finally arriving (think TGIF, Brazilian style). It's one of the most popular pieces of Brazilian slang on social media.

It's gotten to the point where we say A sexta-feira virou sinônimo de festa (Friday has become a synonym for party).

The difference between TUDO and TODO

"Domingando", the song by Thiaguinho

Domingando is a pagode song by Thiaguinho, born from his Tardezinha project, and it's the best example of these day-verbs in Brazilian music: the word shows up in the chorus to describe a laid-back Sunday next to the person you love. Give it a listen and notice how domingando sounds in a Brazilian voice. If you like learning this way, I have a list of songs in Portuguese for you to practice with.

You can follow the full lyrics on Letras.mus.br.

Sexta-feira in Candomblé: the day of Oxalá

In Candomblé and other Afro-Brazilian religions, each day of the week is dedicated to an orixá, and sexta-feira (Friday) is the day of Oxalá, the orixá of creation, peace and purity. His color is white, which is why many practitioners dress in white every Friday.

In Salvador and the rest of Bahia you can really see it on the streets: on Fridays lots of people wear white, whether for faith, family tradition or the syncretism with Senhor do Bonfim from popular Catholicism. Some people also avoid dark clothes and follow certain food rules that day. It's one of those curiosities of Brazilian culture you won't find in grammar books.

A sentence you might hear in Bahia: Toda sexta eu uso roupa branca por causa de Oxalá. (Every Friday I wear white because of Oxalá.)

Friday isn't the only day with an owner. In Candomblé and in Umbanda, each day of the week is dedicated to one or more orixás. This is the most widespread version in Brazil:

Heads-up: this list can change from one terreiro to another and between different traditions. In some houses, for example, Oxum is celebrated on Saturday and in others on Thursday or Friday, and Sunday may be dedicated to Oxalá. What always counts is the guidance of each house.

Why do we say "dias úteis" in Portuguese?

Dias úteis are business days, that is, Monday to Friday, not counting weekends or public holidays (feriados). In English you'd say "business days" or "working days", and in Brazil you'll see dias úteis on any delivery estimate, bank procedure or contract.

The word comes from the Latin utilis, "useful". Roman law already used tempus utile to count only the days when you could actually take care of legal matters. Put another way, a dia útil is a day that is "useful" for working and getting things done. A curious detail: for salary payments, Brazilian labor rules count Saturday as a business day, so the famous quinto dia útil (fifth business day) can fall on a Saturday.

• O prazo de entrega é de cinco dias úteis. (Delivery takes five business days.)
• O salário cai até o quinto dia útil. (Salary is paid by the fifth business day.)

If you work with Brazilians, I recommend reviewing these work expressions in Portuguese.

Bonus: Portuguese words we use all the time

We Brazilians use these words every single day. Do you know what they mean?

• Cuca
• Jeito
• Botar
• Mexer
• Feito
• Achar
• Hediondo
• Pau and pão

FAQ: days of the week in Portuguese