A fortnight is a unit of timeequal to 14 days. The word derives from the Old English term fēowertyne niht, meaning "fourteen nights". Some wages and salaries are paid on a fortnightly basis; however, in North America it is far more common to use the term '. Neither of these terms should be confused with ', which divides a year into exactly 24 periods, instead of the 26 of fortnightly/biweekly.
A fortnight is a term that is used prominently in sporting circles – as many major sports events have a two-week or approximately half-month time frame. In tennis, Wimbledon and the other Grand Slam tournaments are played over two weeks and are often referred to as lasting a fortnight. The Summer and now even the Winter Olympics are also slightly longer than two weeks in length and may be referenced in this manner as well. Likewise various other events in the sporting world could fall under this characterization.
In other languages
In many languages, there is no single word for a two-week period, and the equivalent terms "two weeks", "14 days", or "15 days" have to be used.
Celtic languages: in Welsh, the term pythefnos, meaning "15 nights", is used. This is in keeping with the Welsh term for a week, which is wythnos. In Irish, the term is coicís.
Similarly in Greek the term δεκαπενθήμερο, meaning "15 days", is used.
In Romance languages there are the terms quincena in Galician and Spanish, quinzena or quinze dies in Catalan and quinze dias in Portuguese, quindicina in Italian, :wikt:fr:quinze jours|quinze jours or :wikt:fr:quinzaine|quinzaine in French, and chenzinǎ in Romanian, all meaning "a grouping of 15"; there are also the terms bisettimanale in Italian, bisemanal in Spanish, bissemanal in Portuguese, bisetmanal in Catalan, bihebdomadaire in French, and bisǎptǎmânal in Romanian, that literally mean "biweekly".
Semitic languages have a special "doubling suffix". When added at the end of the word for "week" it changes the meaning to "two weeks". In Hebrew, the single-word שבועיים means exactly "two weeks". Also in Arabic, by adding the common dual suffix to the word for "week", أسبوع, the form أسبوعين, meaning "two weeks", is formed.
Slavic languages: in Czech the terms čtrnáctidenní and dvoutýdenní have the same meaning as "fortnight".
