Día

Dia is a Spanish masculine noun that denotes the period of light within a 24-hour cycle, from one midnight to the next, and, more broadly, the daytime. It also designates a calendar date, as in el día de hoy (today) or el día 5 de mayo (the fifth of May). The plural form is días, used for multiple days or dates.

Etymology: The word comes from Latin dies and entered Spanish through Old Spanish and Vulgar Latin developments. It is spelled with an acute accent on the i to indicate the standard pronunciation and stress.

Grammar and usage: Día is used with definite or indefinite articles: el día, un día. It appears in many common expressions, such as día a día (day by day), todos los días (every day), and día festivo (holiday) or día laborable (working day). In calendrical and informational contexts, one speaks of a specific día, as in fechas o días históricos.

Cultural and linguistic notes: Día functions both as a concrete time unit and as a flexible term in discourse about time, events, and life. It is widely used in literature, journalism, and everyday speech, often in idioms and compound phrases that extend its meaning beyond a simple 24-hour span.