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Heyday

Posted: Tue May 29, 2007 6:24 pm
by skinem
heyday

Function: noun
1 archaic : high spirits
2 : the period of one's greatest popularity, vigor, or prosperity

Since I'm at work and will forget by actuallydo any thingabout this by the time I get home...any ideas on origin of the word?

Frankly, I'm still looking for my heyday! Or was it payday? It's been a whale of a Monday, er, Tuesday...

Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 11:35 am
by sluggo
Found three theories:

[Origin: 1520–30; rhyming compound based on hey; r. heyda < G hei da hey there]

[Perhaps alteration of heyda, exclamation of pleasure, probably alteration of Middle English hey, hey.]

c.1590, alteration of heyda (1526), exclamation of playfulness or surprise, something like Mod.Eng. hurrah, apparently an extended form of M.E. interjection hey, hei. Modern sense of "stage of greatest vigor" first recorded 1751, which altered the spelling on model of day, with which this word apparently has no etymological connection.
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In 1916, Penn applied the name Hey Day to "moving up day" when classes would advance

-I'm sure the nonfused two-word is more a reflection of the spelling of the time (remember to-day?) than any reference to the Antic Hey, the fascinating ancient figure-eight dance turn upon which The Google seems strangely silent and upon which further expansion will just have to wait until I get home to my mythology books, with a hey nonny nonny