- daily
- daily, diurnal, quotidian, circadian mean of each or every day.Daily is used with reference to the ordinary con-cerns and customary happenings of life{
daily wants
}{daily visits
}{the daily newspaper
}Sometimes however it implies an opposition to nightly{the daily anodyne, and nightly draught— Pope
}Diurnal is commonly either astronomical (with special reference to the movements of the heavenly bodies) or poetic in its use{the diurnal revolution of the earth
}{rolled round in earth's diurnal course— Wordsworthy
}Diurnal also implies opposition to nocturnal{the diurnal and nocturnal offices of the monks
}{hunting dogs are mainly diurnal animals— Stevenson-Hamilton
}Quotidian adds to daily the implication of recurrence each day{a quotidian fever
}It often suggests also a commonplace, routine, or everyday character or quality{that quality of strangeness which puts a new light on all quotidian occupations— Bennett
}{he has found in quotidian interests and affections and appetites so complete an escape from the labors and the struggles of the creative spirit— Brooks
}{as quotidian as catching the 8:52 from Surbiton to go to business on a Monday morning— Huxley
}Circadian is a chiefly technical term of recent coinage that differs from daily or quotidian in implying only approximate equation with the twenty-four hour day{circadian rhythms in insect behavior
}Contrasted words: *nightly, nocturnal: periodic, alternate, recurrent, *intermittent: occasional, *infrequent, sporadic
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.