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工作日 (gōng zuò rì) — workday; working day; weekday

Definition

A workday/working day is any day you go to work — Monday through Friday in most contexts. It's the noun form built from 工作 ('work'); pair it with 休息日 for a day off.

noun
workdayworking dayweekday
Measure word · 个

Examples

  • 工作日，。
    Míng tiān shì gōng zuò rì, wǒ yào zǎo qǐ.
    Tomorrow is a workday, so I need to get up early.
  • 工作日？
    gōng zuò rì Nǐ yì bān jǐ diǎn qǐ chuáng?
    What time do you usually get up on workdays?
  • 工作日。
    gōng zuò rì De jiāo tōng bǐ jiào yōng jǐ.
    The traffic is relatively congested on workdays.

Origin

Compound word
构词法gòucífǎ
偏正piānzhèngModifier + head

The first part narrows down the second: it says what kind of thing the head is.

工作work
工gōnglabor作zuòdo
联合Coordinate
日rìday

“工作” means work and “日” means day, giving the idea of a day spent working.

Characters in this word

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

The shape of 工 is a picture of a bladed tool used to plow ground or mark a border; some read it as a carpenter's square.

Open 工 →

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
亻Written in full as人rénperson
Sound part声符shēngfú
乍
乍zhà作zuò
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

The left side 亻 comes from 人, meaning 'person', and the right side 乍 gives the sound.

Open 作 →

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

日 originally drew the sun. A mark was added inside to tell it apart from similar square shapes.

Open 日 →
Appears in
HSK 3.0 Level 3Days & Weeks

Browse more HSK 3 words or search the full 43,000-word dictionary.