Tuesday

Tuesday is the day of the week between Monday and Wednesday. The name comes from Middle English Twisday, from Old English Tiwes dæg, named after the Nordic god Tyr, who was the equivalent of the Roman war god Mars, and Greek god Ares.

In Latin, it is called Martis dies which means "Mars' Day". In Romance languages except Portuguese, the word for "Tuesday" is similar to the Latin name: mardi in French, martes in Spanish, martedì in Italian, dimarts in Catalan, and marţi in Romanian.

Portuguese uses numbers instead of pagan names and so their word for "Tuesday" is terça-feira (the third day).

The English and Scandinavian names are derived from the Nordic god Týr (Old English Tiw):

* Old Frisian: tîesdei
o Modern West Frisian: tiisdei
* Old English: tíwesdæg
o Anglo-Norman:
o Middle English: tíesdæi, tywesdai, twysday
o Early Modern English: towesday, Twesdaie, Tyisday, Tiseday,
o Modern English: Tuesday
* Old High German: zîestag
o Middle High German: zîstag
o Alemannic German: ziischtig
* Old Norse: týrsdagr
o Swedish: Tisdag
o Danish: Tirsdag
o Norwegian: Tirsdag or Tysdag
o Icelandic: Týsdagur

The German word Dienstag, as well as Low German Dingsdag, Deensdag and Dutch Dinsdag (from the 13th century, MHG dinsdag, dinsedag, dincetag, dinstag, dingstag) is probably due to interpretation as dies judicii (thing day) or dies census in popular etymology (Grimm). Another possibility is direct derivation from the god referred to by the Romans as Mars Thingsus, the god of the thing, which could likely be Tyr, as well.[citation needed]

The speech of Old Bavaria, also from the 13th century, used ertag (erihtag, erehtag, erchtag, erichtag, erntag), from which Jacob Grimm in Deutsche Mythologie postulated Ear as an epithet of Ziu.

The Russian word for "Tuesday" is vtórnik, meaning "second"; that is, counting Tuesday as the second day of the week.

Quakers traditionally referred to Tuesday as "Third Day" eschewing the pagan origin of the English name "Tuesday". This has also been the custom in Iceland since about the 11th century when Jón Ögmundsson changed it to Þriðjudagur, meaning "Third Day".[citation needed]

In the Greek world, Tuesday (the day of the week of the Fall of Constantinople) is considered an unlucky day. The same is true in the Spanish-speaking world, where a proverb runs: En martes, ni te cases ni te embarques, meaning, "On Tuesday, neither get married nor begin a journey." For both Greeks and Spanish-speakers, the 13th of the month is considered unlucky if it falls on Tuesday, instead of Friday. In Judaism, on the other hand, Tuesday is considered a particularly lucky day, because in the first chapter of Genesis the paragraph about this day contains the phrase "it was good" twice.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church. Tuesdays are dedicated to Saint John the Baptist. The Octoechos contains hymns on this theme, arranged in an eight-week cycle, that are chanted on Tuesdays throughout the year. At the end of Divine Services on Tuesday, the dismissal begins with the words: "May Christ our True God, through the intercessions of his most-pure Mother, of the honorable and glorious Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John…"

In the folk rhyme Monday's Child, "Tuesday's child is full of grace".

In most of the Indian Languages as well as Nepali and Urdu the word for Tuesday is Mangalwar, with Mangala being the Sanskrit name for the planet Mars.

In the Thai solar calendar, the day is named for the Pali word for the planet Mars, which also means "Ashes of the Dead"; the color associated with Tuesday is Scarlet.

For names in other languages, see Planetary table.

Tuesday is the usual day for elections in the United States. Federal elections take place on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November; this date was established by a law of 1845 for presidential elections (specifically for the selection of the Electoral College), and was extended to elections for the House of Representatives in 1875 and for the Senate in 1914. Tuesday was the earliest day of the week which was practical for polling in the early nineteenth century: citizens might have to travel for a whole day to cast their vote, and would not wish to leave on Sunday which was a day of worship for the great majority of them.

In business, particularly office work, studies have shown that Tuesday is usually the most productive day of the week. Some of these people consider Tuesday to be their least favorite day, because they are not as relaxed as Monday (due to the weekend preceding it), yet they still have most of the work week ahead of them.