Q 01/05

Tuesday is named after Tiw, a one-handed Germanic god associated with what?

A) Single combat and pledges

B) Thunder and lightning

C) Harvests and fertility

D) Poetry and wisdom

Answer · why

A) Single combat and pledges

Tiw (Norse Tyr) was equated with Mars, which is why Romance languages name the day after the Roman war god.

Q 02/05

In Latin, Tuesday was dies Martis, the day of which Roman god?

A) Jupiter

B) Mercury

C) Mars

D) Saturn

Answer · why

C) Mars

Italian martedì and Spanish martes keep the Roman war god; English swapped in his Germanic counterpart Tiw.

Q 03/05

The German word for Tuesday, Dienstag, comes from which Germanic institution?

A) A market

B) An assembly

C) A harvest feast

D) A hunt

Answer · why

B) An assembly

Tiw had a strong connection to the thing, the Germanic governing assembly, so German and Dutch named the day after the meeting rather than the god.

Q 04/05

In Japanese, Tuesday is kayōbi, named after which planet?

A) Venus

B) Jupiter

C) Saturn

D) Mars

Answer · why

D) Mars

Kasei, the 'fire star', is Mars, so Japanese and Korean both call Tuesday the fire day.

Q 05/05

In Greek the name for Tuesday, Triti, literally means what?

A) The third

B) The fire day

C) The war day

D) The second

Answer · why

A) The third

Greeks count the day as the third of the week, which feeds the local superstition that bad luck comes in threes, especially on the 13th.