a month of Sundays

M

a month of Sundays (idiom – hyperbolic expression)
/ə mʌnθ əv ˈsʌndeɪz/

Meanings

• A very long time; something that rarely or almost never happens.
• An indefinite period that feels unusually long, often boring or monotonous.
• A tedious, dreary, or wasted stretch of time with nothing exciting happening. (negative connotation)
• Not in a month of Sundays – absolutely never; something that is impossible or highly unlikely to happen. (strong negative variant)

Synonyms: ages; forever; eternity; donkey’s years; aeons; drag (negative); never; impossible; not a chance.

Example Sentences

1. I haven’t spoken to her in a month of Sundays, so I hardly recognize her voice now.
2. I haven’t seen him in a month of Sundays, so his visit was a surprise.
3. Waiting for the old computer to start felt like a month of Sundays.
4. The meeting dragged on like a month of Sundays, and everyone was exhausted by the end. (negative connotation)
5. That lecture felt like a month of Sundays, dragging on endlessly. (negative connotation)
6. She’ll forgive him, but not in a month of Sundays will she trust him again. (negative variant)

Origin and History

The idiom “a month of Sundays” is a hyperbolic expression denoting an exceptionally long period, often imbued with a sense of protracted duration or rarity. Its conceptual foundation rests in the Christian tradition of observing Sunday as a day of mandated rest, where religious and societal restrictions confined activities to worship and contemplation. This limitation often made Sundays feel unusually extended, transforming the notion of multiple such days into a metaphor for an interminable or tedious span of time. The phrase thus captures the idea that certain events occur so infrequently that they seem to require an entire month’s worth of Sabbaths to materialize.

Etymological Foundations

The phrase’s etymology hinges on the calendar’s structure, where a typical month includes four to five Sundays. By exaggerating this to “a month of Sundays”—implying thirty or thirty-one consecutive Sundays—the idiom evokes a period equivalent to roughly seven months. This amplification creates a vivid sense of vast, almost unattainable time. The combination of “month,” a measurable unit, with “Sundays,” emblematic of enforced idleness, heightens the expression’s hyperbolic effect.

Over time, the phrase evolved to signify not only extended duration but also the improbability of an event occurring within such an exaggerated timeframe.

Cultural and Historical Context

In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain, particularly within Protestant and Anglican communities, Sundays were governed by strict prohibitions on work, commerce, and leisure, fostering a perception of the day as monotonous. This cultural context imbued the idiom with connotations of dreariness, as Sundays stood in stark contrast to the week’s productive cadence. The aggregation of such days into “a month of Sundays” symbolized an eternity of uneventful passage, resonating with societal attitudes toward time and leisure. This interplay between temporal structure and emotional experience allowed the phrase to gain traction in everyday language, bridging literal and figurative meanings.

The Earliest Printed Record

The earliest known printed use of the idiom appears in The Life and Real Adventures of Hamilton Murray, published in 1759 in London by its author, Hamilton Murray. Within this autobiographical narrative, the phrase emerges in a vivid passage:

“The commander… swore he should dance to the second part of the same tune, for a month of Sundays.”

In this context, the expression underscores an indefinite postponement, aligning with its core meaning of prolonged delay. This literary debut, set within Murray’s dramatic recounting of captivity and resistance, marks the idiom’s transition from oral tradition to documented prose, highlighting its early versatility in narrative contexts.

Development of the Negative Variant

The negative variant, “not in a month of Sundays,” emerged in the early nineteenth century as a stronger assertion of impossibility, building on the original phrase’s temporal exaggeration. An early instance appears in 1835, within a colloquial dialogue:

“Your money I’ll hide so that, if they were to search for a month of Sundays, by Jasus! they’d never find it.”

By 1849, the variant had solidified, as seen in the statement: “He would not guess it in ‘a month of Sundays,’ neither shall we enlighten him.” These examples illustrate the phrase’s evolution into a robust expression of negation, widely adopted to emphasize absolute unlikelihood in both spoken and written English.

Variants

1. it will take a month of Sundays
2. haven’t seen in a month of Sundays
3. like a month of Sundays
4. waiting a month of Sundays
5. not in a month of Sundays
6. never in a month of Sundays

Days, Time

Last update: November 16, 2025 1:02 AM