Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A week.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The space of seven nights and days; a week.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Archaic. The space of seven nights and days; a week.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun archaic A period of seven nights; a week.
  • adverb archaic After a sennight has passed.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English senight, contraction of seveniht, from Old English seofon nihta, seven nights : seofon, seven; see seven + nihta, pl. of niht, night; see night.]

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word sennight.

Examples

  • '_a Month_,' and perhaps 'sennight' is better than 'week.'

    Letters of Edward FitzGerald in two volumes, Vol. 1 Edward FitzGerald 1846

  • And it wasn't much more than a sennight since she'd called upon the Elves to lend power to the forging of the keystone she'd sent off with Kellen.

    Tran Siberian Michael J. Solender 2010

  • Today's emergency Council session could only mean that the Council was meeting to review the reports from the field, admit what each of them had known a sennight ago, and fix the blame.

    Tran Siberian Michael J. Solender 2010

  • It was already late summer, and in a sennight-a fortnight at the most-he would have to turn eastward again, lest winter catch him far from Nerendale's comforts.

    Tran Siberian Michael J. Solender 2010

  • At last, after a whole sennight of fruitless searching, he set the book he'd been looking at back in its place on the shelf with a disgusted sigh.

    Tran Siberian Michael J. Solender 2010

  • He thought of the dryad's lightning-struck tree back in the Wildwood, and what would have happened if the Wild-wood had been as tinder-dry as the country he and Idalia had ridden through for the last sennight.

    Tran Siberian Michael J. Solender 2010

  • Even more fortunately, he and Idalia had been in Sentarshadeen less than a sennight, and his bedroll (and other camping equipment) were still tucked away in the corners of his room, along with his share of the traveling packs.

    Tran Siberian Michael J. Solender 2010

  • "WILD Magic is especially good for healing-almost anything is a Healing Spell when you come right down to it," Idalia told him a sennight after his arrival, as she used Wild Magic to heal the ankle he'd strained while fishing in a rocky-strewn brook, explaining to him that she was also going to strengthen it so that he wouldn't repeat the injury.

    Tran Siberian Michael J. Solender 2010

  • But as one sennight, then two, passed without sign of him, or Kellen, or Shalkan, her hope for their survival dimmed.

    Tran Siberian Michael J. Solender 2010

  • Idalia and Canderil spoke easily and companionably about people Kellen didn't know, very much as if they'd last seen each other a sennight ago instead of after an absence on Idalia's part of what must be several years.

    Tran Siberian Michael J. Solender 2010

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • A week('s time).

    "As for his marriage to the Lady Margaret, fixed though it was for this day sennight, the thing was so palpably absurd that he scarcely gave it a thought."

    - Orlando, Virginia Woolf.

    February 5, 2008

  • Half a fortnight.

    November 19, 2012