Dátum

Dátum is a term used to designate a specific day within a calendar system. In Hungarian, it refers to the calendar date of an event or point in time. A date is commonly expressed with year, month, and day, and may also indicate a era or calendar cycle.

Etymology and use across languages: Dátum derives from Latin datī, datum, meaning “something given” or “the given day,” and was adopted into Hungarian and other languages to denote calendar dates. The concept exists in many linguistic traditions, often with similar roots and parallel terms for identifying a particular day.

Formats and components: A date typically includes three components—year, month, and day. Formats vary by region and standard. The ISO 8601 standard presents dates as YYYY-MM-DD (for example, 2024-11-29). Other systems use day-month-year or month-day-year arrangements, sometimes with month names or ordinal indicators. Leap years adjust February to 29 days, ensuring alignment with the solar year. Calendars may also include time-of-day information or time zone data when precise dating is required.

Uses and significance: Dates are essential in daily life for scheduling, record-keeping, and legal purposes, such as birth dates, deadlines, and anniversaries. In computing, dates are stored and manipulated as timestamps or date objects, enabling arithmetic, comparisons, and time-zone handling. Historical calendars (such as Julian and Gregorian) reflect changes in the way dates are defined and observed, with reform efforts affecting how events are dated.

See also: calendar, Gregorian calendar, ISO 8601, Unix timestamp, date format.