Italian › Vocabulary › Days of the Week in Italian
The quick answer: lunedì, martedì, mercoledì, giovedì, venerdì, sabato, domenica. The first five are Roman gods and end in a stressed -dì from Latin dies. The last two are not, and that is a change of religion showing through.
All seven, spoken
Five of them are Roman gods. Two are not, and the reason is a change of religion.
| Italian | Say it like | Where it comes from | Listen |
|---|---|---|---|
| lunedì | loo-neh-DEE | Monday — the moon’s day, from luna. | |
| martedì | mar-teh-DEE | Tuesday — Mars. | |
| mercoledì | mehr-koh-leh-DEE | Wednesday — Mercury. | |
| giovedì | joh-veh-DEE | Thursday — Jove, or Jupiter. | |
| venerdì | veh-nehr-DEE | Friday — Venus. | |
| sabato | SAH-bah-toh | Saturday — from the Sabbath, not a Roman god. | |
| domenica | doh-MEH-nee-kah | Sunday — dies Dominica, the Lord’s day. | |
| oggi | OHD-jee | Today. The double gg is held. | |
| domani | doh-MAH-nee | Tomorrow. | |
| ieri | YEH-ree | Yesterday. | |
| la settimana | lah seht-tee-MAH-nah | The week — literally “the seven”. | |
| il fine settimana | eel FEE-neh seht-tee-MAH-nah | The weekend. |
The five gods and the two that replaced them
Monday through Friday are Latin, and they are planets and gods: Lunae the moon, Martis Mars, Mercurii Mercury, Jovis Jupiter, Veneris Venus. English has exactly the same week underneath, with Norse gods swapped in — Tuesday is Tiw, Thursday is Thor, Friday is Frija.
Saturday and Sunday broke the pattern. Rome had Saturni dies and Solis dies, Saturn and the Sun. Christianity replaced both: sabato from the Hebrew Sabbath, and domenica from dies Dominica, the Lord’s day.
English kept its pagan pair. Italian did not. That is the whole difference, and it is visible in the two words that do not end in -dì.
💡 The article changes the meaning. Lunedì vado a Roma is “on Monday I am going to Rome” — this coming Monday. Il lunedì vado a Roma is “on Mondays I go to Rome” — every week. One small word, and a completely different arrangement.
Saying these out loud
The accent is the stress. Every -dì day is stressed on that last syllable: loo-neh-DEE, mar-teh-DEE. Put the stress earlier and it stops sounding like the word.
gi is a soft j. Giovedì is joh-veh-DEE.
The doubled gg in oggi is held. OHD-jee — there is a real beat before the j sound.
Lower case, always. Writing Lunedì mid-sentence marks you out as writing English in Italian.
Saying when something happens
The seven words are the easy half. This is the half you actually need in a conversation.
This week, next week. Questa settimana, la settimana prossima, la settimana scorsa — scorsa is last, prossima is next.
The day after tomorrow. Dopodomani — one word. And the day before yesterday is l’altro ieri, literally “the other yesterday”.
In three days. Fra tre giorni or tra tre giorni — both are correct and Italians use them interchangeably, choosing whichever sounds better next to the following word.
Every day. Ogni giorno, or tutti i giorni.
On the weekend. Nel fine settimana, or simply il weekend, borrowed whole from English and completely standard.
Why the days are masculine and Sunday is not
Small grammatical detail that trips people up when they start writing dates.
Monday through Saturday are masculine: il lunedì, il sabato. Domenica is feminine: la domenica.
The reason is in the origin. The -dì days come from dies, which was masculine in late Latin. Domenica comes from dies Dominica, and the adjective carried the feminine ending with it into Italian.
So it is il prossimo lunedì but la prossima domenica. Nobody will misunderstand you if you get it wrong, but it is the kind of small thing that marks careful Italian.
Why an Italian calendar looks wrong to an American
Open a calendar in Italy and the first column is lunedì. Sunday sits at the far right, at the end, where the week finishes.
This is not a preference — it is the international standard, ISO 8601, which Italy and most of Europe follow. The United States and Canada keep Sunday first, from the older religious reckoning in which the Sabbath opens the week.
It causes real confusion. Il primo giorno della settimana means Monday to an Italian and Sunday to an American, and the two of them can arrange a meeting for “the start of next week” and turn up a day apart.
The word weekend gives the game away: Saturday and Sunday are the end, which only makes sense if the week began on Monday.
The days inside other Italian words
Once you can see the seven, you start noticing them elsewhere.
Domenica is also a woman’s name, and a fairly common one — usually shortened to Menica or Domenichina in older families. If a Domenica turns up in your family records, she was almost certainly born on a Sunday.
Ferragosto, 15 August, is the day Italy closes entirely. From Feriae Augusti, the holidays of Augustus — a Roman festival that has run continuously for two thousand years and now empties the cities.
Martedì grasso is Fat Tuesday, the last day of Carnevale — the same day New Orleans calls Mardi Gras, which is simply the French version of the identical phrase.
And venerdì 17 is the Italian unlucky day. Not Friday the 13th — Friday the 17th, and the reason is a Latin word game: XVII rearranges to VIXI, Latin for “I have lived” — which is what was carved on Roman tombstones.
Key facts
- The seven days are lunedì, martedì, mercoledì, giovedì, venerdì, sabato, domenica.
- The -dì ending is Latin dies, day, and carries the stress.
- Monday to Friday are named for Roman gods; sabato and domenica come from the Sabbath and the Lord’s day.
- Italian days are never capitalised.
- The Italian week starts on Monday, not Sunday.
- Adding the article makes it habitual: il lunedì means “on Mondays”, every week.
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