Every day you wake up, hop in the shower, get dressed, drive to work, and eat the same everyday breakfast of a bagel with cream cheese. This sentence exhibits the proper usage of both every day and everyday.
From context clues, someone might be able to glean each definition, but a refresher is always appreciated. ‘Everyday’ vs. ‘every day’ have their own unique usages, and both belong to different parts of speech. If you’re already confused, read up on these other confusing rules in the grammar world.
Everyday is an adjective used to describe something which is standard, commonplace, or habitual. You may say that a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is an everyday meal, but that doesn’t necessarily make it literally something that you eat every day. Generally speaking, everyday is going to precede a noun in a sentence. For example, ‘His everyday headband was reliable, always keeping the sweat off his brow.’
Every day is an adverbial phrase referring to something which is actually done on a daily basis. It is composed of an adverb, every, and a noun day. Every day is used to describe verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. For example, ‘Jimbo wakes up every day at 7 a.m.’
The usages are similar and will frequently deal with concepts of routine. It can be easy to get them jumbled, but in writing, it’s always great to know the rules. But in conversation, all bets might be off. It’s not like you’re going to time the pauses between ‘every’ and ‘day’ in your everyday conversations, are you?
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