Look up fortnight in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Fortnight is a unit of time equal to fourteen days, or two weeks. The word derives from the Old English fēowertyne niht, meaning "fourteen nights".^[1][2] Fortnight and fortnightly are commonly used words in Britain and many Commonwealth countries such as Australia, India, New Zealand, and Pakistan, where many wages and salaries and most social security benefits are paid on a fortnightly basis.^[3] The word is rarely used in North America, except regionally in Canada and in insular traditional communities (e.g. Amish) in the United States. American and Canadian payroll systems may use the term biweekly in reference to pay periods every two weeks. Neither term should be confused with semimonthly (in one year there are 26 fortnightly or biweekly versus 24 semimonthly pay periods).

Astronomy[link]

In astronomy, a fortnight is the mean (average) time between a full moon and a new moon (and vice versa) or half a synodic month. This is equal to 14.77 days. For more information see eclipse cycle. ^[4][5]

Hindu Calendar[link]

In the Hindu calendar this period is called a Paksha (also Paksa) and consists of 15 Tithi.

In other languages[link]

In many languages, there is no single word for a two-week period and the equivalents of "two weeks" or "fourteen days" have to be used. In many romance languages, there are the terms quincena (or quince días) in Spanish and Galician, cwindexéna (Venetian), quinzaine (French), quindicina Italian, and quinzena (Portuguese and Catalan), all meaning "fifteen days"; in Italian is also in use the word "bisettimanale" with the same meaning of fortnightly. Similarly, in Greek, the term δεκαπενθήμερο (dekapenthímero), meaning "fifteen days", is also used. However in Hebrew, the single-word (shvu′ayim) שבועים means exactly "two weeks". The Hindu calendar uses the Sanskrit word "paksha" to mean one half of a lunar month, which is between 14 and 15 solar days. In Welsh, the term pythefnos, meaning "fifteen nights", is used instead. This is in keeping with the Welsh term for a week, which is wythnos ("eight nights").

See also[link]

• Half-month
• FFF system
• Sennight

References[link]

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