Initial-letter contraction
“day” in braille
Two cells for the whole word, however long it is — 3 letters here, a saving of 1 cell. “day” is 113th in the 5,000-word frequency list this site measures against.
Dots 5, then dots 1-4-5
Unicode ⠐⠙ — 3 letters in two cells
How to recognise it
Three letters into two cells saves exactly one, which makes this among the least profitable contractions in braille. It earns its keep inside the days of the week, where it turns up seven times over.
The second cell is the letter d
The second cell is the word's own first letter — the simpler half of this list. The other nine use a groupsign instead.
Where it may appear inside a longer word
The rulebook uses it wherever its letters occur, unless another rule limits it (Rules of Unified English Braille 10.7.1).
This site does the same. The rulebook sets apart Dayan, Sanday and whaddaya, and the translator writes them as the rulebook does.
From the rulebook's own examples, as this site writes them. With the sign: day-by-day ⠐⠙⠤⠃⠽⠤⠐⠙; Dayton ⠠⠐⠙⠞⠕⠝; Friday ⠠⠋⠗⠊⠐⠙. Without it: Sanday ⠠⠎⠯⠁⠽; Dayan ⠠⠙⠁⠽⠁⠝.
As with every contraction, it is not used where its letters would reach across the join between the parts of a compound word (10.11).
Updated 27 September 2026. Until 18 September this section gave the positions — start, middle, end — where the sign agreed with the reference translator more often than not, and the translator followed those. It follows the rule above now; the survey explains what changed and why.
Longer words that keep it
13 words among the 5,000 commonest in English are written with this contraction inside them. These are some of them, and every one was taken from this site's own output rather than chosen by hand.
| Word | In braille (Grade 2) | Grade 1 | Grade 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| days | 4 cells | 3 cells | |
| monday | 6 cells | 5 cells | |
| friday | 6 cells | 5 cells | |
| holiday | 7 cells | 6 cells | |
| sunday | 6 cells | 5 cells |
Words where it is written out instead
| Word | Written as | Why |
|---|---|---|
| today | the whole word is the shortform td, which is shorter still |
The other 21 words under dots 5
The largest of the three prefix groups, so the prefix itself tells you little — the second cell does the work.
character, ever, father, here, know, lord, mother, name, one, ought, part, question, right, some, there, through, time, under, where, work, young.
In a whole book
In a count over the whole of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (26,439 words), this contraction is written 38 times and saves 38 cells. That is 0.11% of everything Grade 2 saves in the book, and ranks it 113th of the 158 contractions used.
The words it is written in: day (29), days (4), yesterday (3), birthday (1), holiday (1).
Check your own text
Type “day” into the translator with Grade 2 selected to see both cells, or take the full list.
“day” in braille as an image
Both cells as a picture: dot 5, then dots 1, 4 and 5 — the whole word in two cells rather than 3 letters.
