weeklong

weeklong — adjective

  • weeklongpositive
  • more weeklongcomparative
  • most weeklongsuperlative

1. continuing for seven days without stopping

1.adjectiveB2
Definition

continuing for seven days without stopping

Example

Fatima attended a weeklong training course on water safety in Nairobi.

attributive: weeklong + [noun] for a seven-day event

The weeklong festival filled the streets of Oaxaca with music and colour.

Synonyms
  • seven-day

    more common in compound nouns like 'seven-day forecast' or 'seven-day pass'

  • week-long

    hyphenated spelling variant; more frequent in British English

Grammar Patterns

weeklong + noun

Usage Note

Almost always used before a noun (attributive position). It is not used after a linking verb — you would not say 'the course was weeklong.'

Common Mistakes

I took a weekly course in Paris.' (when you mean it lasted one week).
I took a weeklong course in Paris.
'weekly' means happening every week, not lasting for one week.

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: adjective/1

Weeklong and seven-day both mean 'lasting a full week,' but they appear in different patterns. Weeklong is almost always attributive (before a noun): a weeklong festival, a weeklong strike. Seven-day fits the same position but is favoured in fixed compounds like seven-day forecast, seven-day free trial, and seven-day working week. The hyphenated week-long is a spelling variant more common in British English; both forms share the same meaning and usage. Weekly is a different word entirely — it describes something that repeats every week (a weekly meeting), not something that lasts a week. A weeklong course meets every day for one week; a weekly course meets once a week over many weeks.

seven-dayweek-long ↗weekly ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

Phrases

  • a weeklong period
  • a weeklong break

Prepositions

  • during a weeklong
  • after a weeklong
  • for a weeklong

Etymology

Old EnglishEnglish

Formed within English by combining week (from Old English wice, meaning a period of seven days) with long (from Old English lang, meaning extended in duration). The compound follows the same pattern as daylong and yearlong. First recorded in print in 1847.

First known use

1847

1847, in the meaning defined above