Examples of Everyday vs Every Day- What’s the difference?

Here are some examples of Everyday and Every day in a sentence.  After that, I will explain the difference and give you more examples and exercises. 

Examples of Everyday

1. These are my everyday jeans. I don’t wear them on special occasions.
2. This is a great everyday phone. You don’t need to worry about it.
3. It is the small, everyday things that make me happy. My coffee in the morning, My shower at night.
4. Not having clean water is part of everyday life in this village.
5. Praying to God is an everyday custom in this part of the world. 

Examples of Every day

1. I have a shower every day.
2. I want to enjoy and be thankful for every day of my life.
3. She talks to her mother every day.
4. My husband plays football every day after work. 
5. I play my guitar every day.

So ….What’s the difference?

Everyday

Everyday is an adjective. It describes something and it generally means that this object that you describe is used each day. Often when we describe something as “everyday” we mean that it is nothing fancy or special.

So, when I described my jeans as everyday jeans above, The meaning is that they are not my best pair of jeans. I wear them to school or work but I wouldn’t wear them to an important occasion like a job interview or a wedding.

Every day

Every day, with two words, is the answer to how often you do something. So, I can ask you the question, 

“How often do you go to the gym?”

“Every day”

When you want to say that you do something each and every day you need to use two words. Example:  I go to work every day.

Why is this difficult?

This is difficult because when we are speaking Everyday and Every day sound the same so we need to find a way to quickly understand if we need one word or two words when we need to write them.  

If you can substitute “Each day” then it is two words “Every day”. Every day is an adverb and it is more common because we want to describe our habits and actions.

The adjective Everyday is not as common. We generally just use it with clothes. It means when something is suitable for use very often. Some synonyms for this adjective are mundane, quotidian, run-of-the-mill, common, normal.

Exercise

Decide if these sentences are correct.

1. I drink coffee everyday. 
2. Every day you smoke, you do more damage to your body.
3. What is it that you do every day?
4. I like the everyday smells that are all around me.
5. I think about work everyday.
6. What is it like to work with him every day?
7. This is just my everyday life now. 
8. These shoes are for everyday use.
9. Every day crime is a big problem in our country.
10. Every day I wake up at 7 o’clock in the morning.

You can find the answers in the comments.

So remember….

Every day is how often you do something and Everyday is when you want to describe something that you use all the time.