Long Weekend

Long weekend is a term used in Western countries to denote a weekend that is at least three days long (so, a "three-day weekend"), due to a holiday falling on either the Friday or Monday.

Most countries (although notably not the USA) also feature many "four-day weekends," in which two days adjoining the weekend are holidays. (Examples can include Easter Monday / Good Friday, and Christmas Day / Boxing Day.)

Further, in many nations, when a lone holiday occurs on a Tuesday or a Thursday, the gap between that day and the weekend may also be designated as a holiday, or set to be a movable or floating holiday, or indeed work/school may be avoided by consensus unofficially. This is typically referred to by a phrase involving "bridge" in most languages.

A special situation exists in France in some elementary schools, where there is no school on Wednesday: thus, any four-day weekend is essentially a "five-day weekend" for the kids and their teachers. Any four-day bridge, for example: Thursday (Holiday) and Friday (bridge day) for Ascension, is essentially a "five-day weekend" to some teachers.

Four-day "bridge" weekends are commonplace in non-English speaking countries, but there are only a couple of examples in English-speaking countries:

In the USA, the fourth Thursday of November is Thanksgiving; but the adjacent Friday is made in to a non-working day at some businesses. In Melbourne, Australia, the Melbourne Cup holiday is a Tuesday, but very many people modify their work arrangements to have the Monday off. NextLongWeekend.com displays the upcoming long weekends in USA, Australia, Canada and United Kingdom.