Overmorrow

I recently read an article about obsolete words. The one word that struck me was "overmorrow". Certainly easy to understand by everybody even if obsolete, it is such a nice and short version for the rather clumsy "the day after tomorrow". I wonder if in today's time where language tends to be more and more simplified this word will make its way back into the active vocabulary.

Quite the contrary is "nudiustertian" from Latin "nudius tertius" that is formed from the phrase "nunc dies tertius est" (now is the third day). Even if longer I suppose "the day before yesterday" is still easier to remember and pronounce for most people.

German still uses übermorgen. I wonder when it became obsolete in the English language.
It seems like a useful word to have in the language.

French has "avant-hier" and "après-demain", both very useful too...

I found a thread on a forum where someone did the usual checking and found that Ngram doesn't show overmorrow and that Google Books only has 16 hits, si it must not have been common at any time. . I got 59 hit hit out of Google Books, but some were Dutch-Enlgish dictionaries.

Someone noted that it was in the 1913 Webster's but not later ones.

The first recorded use seems to be Coverdale's Bible of 1535.

Thē ſpake Tobias unto the virgin, and ſayde: Up Sara, let us make oure prayer unto God to daye, tomorow, and ouermorow: for theſe thre nightes wil we reconcyle oure ſelues with God: and whan the thirde holy night is paſt, we ſhall ioyne together in ye deutye of marriage.

This is interesting, as you say, English generally uses the rather clumsy 'day after tomorrow' or 'day before yesterday'. The Chinese do have specific terms for such items without recourse to lengthy phrases.

Hebrew has a word for the day after tomorrow, מחרתיים, mahoratayim, meaning literally "a double tomorrow". There's also a word for the day before yesterday, שלשום, shilshom, which comes from the root meaning three (total three days).

I like overmorrow. Will start using in less formal texts to revive this word :-)

In Russian, поселезафтра (poslezaftra) is exactly like the french après-demain, after-tomorrow.

Here's a forum thread on the subject with "day before yesterday" and "day after tomorrow" in a number of languages. Many posters include literal translations.

One interesting thing is that in Gujarati, Panjabi and Hindi there is one word for both concepts. Context is used to figure out which one it is. Hindi and Gujarati have the same word for tomorrow & yesterday, as well. (I'll bet Panjabi does as well, but no one comment.)

Tagalog and Greek have specific words for 3 and 4 days ago & 3-4 days ahead. Basque has terms for 3 days ago/ahead.

spelling correction to #7 - too late to edit:

поселезавтра (poslezavtra)

I've likely said it before, but absolutely the best word for "the day after tomorrow" is the Georgian one, ზეგ (zeg). What could be more succinct?

And can you enlighten us what "zeg" means when literally translated (that is if it can be)?

And can you enlighten us what "zeg" means when literally translated (that is if it can be)?

Ha. Literally translated, "zeg" means "the day after tomorrow." Full stop. There is no deeper meaning, no (known) etymological obscurities to unravel. (Since Georgian is a linguistic isolate, unrelated to any major language, many of its sources remain obscure.) It is what it is: a convenient way to refer to the near, but not immediate, future.

I like zeg.

Yeah, thumbs up for "zeg".

Dutch= overmorgen. Clearly a cognate of 'overmorrow'.
Still very much in use.
'eergisteren' is the day before 'gisteren' (yesterday).

Interesting... the obsolete antonym of overmorrow is ereyesterday. Prefix seems similar to the Dutch version.

I can't believe that the hobbits didn't talk about overmorrow in The Lord of the Rings. It sounds exactly like a common hobbit term, just like "second breakfast."

I wonder if whoever tried to introduce overmorrow and ereyesterday into English knew Dutch.

Not really hobbity, but I have an old (mid-20th century) Polish cookbook and in their daily menu plans and suggestions, they have a second breakfast, around 10 or 11 I would think.

Winnie the Pooh, and my mother's maiden aunts, had elevenses. I don't think Winnie the Pooh uses the word, but 11 AM is time for a little smackerel of something.

In the case of the aunts it involved a glass of porter.

Paddington Bear calls those second breakfasts "elevenses" as well, but I agree with #20 and do not think that this is a term still commonly used these days. Never heard it before other than reading it in Michael Bond's Paddington Bear books (must get A.A. Milne out of the book shelf).

French afternoon snack is still commonly called "quatre-heures" instead of "goûter"

as zashibis said there is no any hidden meaning in georgian word ..zeg it just means after tomorrow.
and if you add two letters to zeg , you get a day after tomorrow.e.g mazeg

and if you add two letters to zeg , you get a day after tomorrow.e.g mazeg

Gor, don't you mean that mazeg (მაზეგ) means the day after the day after tomorrow ? That's how this online dictionary defines it.

At any rate, all my dictionaries and textbooks give zeg as, quite specifically, "the day after tomorrow" (like the movie) and that's certainly how we used it in Adjara, however you use it in your part of Georgia.

What is yesterday and the day before yesterday in Georgian?

zashibis..khval,zeg,mazeg..tomorrow,aftertomorrow,one more day after tomorrow.
yesterday is gushin,a day before yesterday is gushincin,and gushinciniscin is 3 days before,although the last one is rarely used on tv or media

Definitely not as nice as zeg.

Zeg made the Urban Dictionary, so it must have entered English somewhere.

The Georgian word for "the day after tomorrow". There's actually no equivalent word in English.
Today is Wednesday, tomorrow is Thursday, and zeg is Friday. Zeg evening, I'm heading straight to a bar as soon as I get off work.

Zeg made the Urban Dictionary, so it must have entered English somewhere.

Well, not really, as absolutely anyone can add any word (real, foreign, nonce, or imaginary) to the Urban Dictionary at any time.

What it probably reflects, indirectly, is that a lot more English speakers have been visiting Georgia in recent years, particularly since the Georgian government started Teach and Learn with Georgia (TLG), a quasi-Peace Corps initiative that has seen hundreds of volunteers spend six months or a year in the country.

(Even when I was living in Georgia, long before TLG, all resident English-speakers adopted zeg as a word too handy to be dispensed with, even when not speaking Georgian...as few foreigners can do fluently anyway, myself not excepted.)

nutrax i dont know about zeg but the only georgian word that has been adopted by other languages all over post soviet unnion is tamada(toast master).every alcoholic soviet guy knows that.now i can t write any more i am terribly drunk,we had a special religious day today