Today, the noun fortnight describes a period of two weeks or fourteen days. It is an ancient English term that dates to the twelfth century. The original meaning was a period of fourteen nights, which seems to fit better.
“I got a call from King Charles, and he invited us to stay at Buckingham Palace for a fortnight.”
“It seems like a fortnight since it has rained.”
Fortnight is still used, and we see it written and hear it spoken on the BBC. But what about sennight? Sennight means seven days and nights and comes from the fifteenth century.
“I agreed to go on a cruise with my wife for a sennight, but she insisted we stay for a fortnight.”
If you use the term “fortnight” today, people are more likely to think you are referring to the popular video game Fortnite. Fortnite was created by the North Carolina company Epic Games and has become one of the most popular video games ever.
Fortnite involves various elements of construction, combat, and strategy. Players build and enhance their world through trade, construction, and acquiring multiple weapons and other assets in the game. To grasp the game’s popularity, you only need to understand that in 2024, there were 350 million registered users.
But Fortnite and fortnight are not the same thing.
Cheugy is not a real word, at least not yet. Popular dictionaries seem to have a proclivity for adding slang words these days to stay woke, we guess. Technically, if you would like to have a category for cheugy and other “near words,” then the term is a neologism. A neologism is a term that has not yet been widely accepted into mainstream language. But neologisms are another word for another day.
Cheugy (chew-gee) is a term believed to have been coined in 2013 as a pejorative description of current trends. Cheugy would be the opposite of something that is “trendy” or “cool” to borrow even more confusing terms.
Strange things and terms currently in use could be deemed cheugy. Terms like “Mom Jeans” or catchy signs like “Live, Laugh, Love” would be cheugy. Cheugy can be used to describe things that are out of date or people who try too hard.
“We stayed in an Airbnb for a fortnight, and it was full of strange little cheugy signs and plaques.”
“My Dad has all these old T-shirts with cheugy little sayings on them.”
