Sunday scaries

The Sunday scaries are the anxious, low feeling that creeps in on Sunday as the weekend ends and the work or school week gets closer.

What Sunday scaries means

Merriam-Webster defines the Sunday scaries as feelings of anxiety or sadness that come on Sunday from knowing the weekend is almost over. It’s usually said with “the”: “the Sunday scaries are hitting.” The cause might be work, school, a long to-do list, or just the end of free time.

It’s a casual phrase, not a clinical term. If that dread shows up every week and is intense, it can be worth paying attention to, but most people use it for a familiar, mild Sunday-evening gloom.

Examples

• “It’s 4 p.m. on Sunday and the scaries have arrived.”
• “I meal-prep on Sundays to beat the Sunday scaries.”
• “Even on vacation I get the Sunday scaries.”

Where it came from

Merriam-Webster says the phrase has been used this way since at least the late 2000s, but its exact origin is unknown. It quotes a 2013 Chicago Tribune columnist who heard it from his girlfriend and had to ask what it meant. The form follows words like “the willies”: scare plus -ies, naming a state of mind. Merriam-Webster added it to its dictionary with a first-known-use date of 2013.

Related terms

• Bare minimum Monday: easing into the week.
• Boreout: burnout from boredom.
• Bed rotting: a day in bed on purpose.
• Doomscrolling: scrolling bad news.

See more terms like this in our work and money slang guide.