Neljapäeva

Neljapäeva is the genitive singular form of neljapäev, the Estonian word for Thursday. Neljapäev is a compound of nelja (“four”) and päev (“day”), reflecting the traditional naming of the days of the week as ordinal-like designations. In Estonian, the seven days are esmaspäev, teisipäev, kolmapäev, neljapäev, reede, laupäev, and pühapäev. Neljapäev means “the fourth day” in the sequence, and neljapäeva is used to mean “of Thursday” or “Thursday’s” in possessive or attributive constructions.

Grammatically, neljapäeva is the genitive singular form. It is used when the day is attributed to another noun, for example neljapäeva kohtumine (Thursday’s meeting) or neljapäeva plaan (Thursday’s plan). It is not typically used to express the temporal sense of “on Thursday”—that meaning normally uses the adessive form neljapäeval.

In standard Estonian, days of the week are common nouns written with lowercase letters. The genitive form neljapäeva appears in written and formal contexts to indicate possession or association with Thursday, while the adessive neljapäeval is used to specify time expressions such as events occurring on that day. The distinction between neljapäeva and neljapäeval helps convey whether the phrase refers to Thursday’s something or to activities occurring on Thursday.