I’d actually say that <em>on weekends </em>and <em>over the weekend </em>sound most natural to me, and while <em>on the weekend </em>sounds more natural than <em>at the weekend, </em>it still sounds ... off.

I’m from the US.

I have a pet theory the British way at the weekend and at Easter etc, derives from the notion of "atte" in old English meaning at a place used on old and modern maps as an integral part of the language at the time.. And it has in British English come to mean at the specific time of the week. Officially beginning at midnight on Friday and extending to Monday morning, but with modern working and commuter societies it now starts in the early afternoon of Fridays when everybody tries to beat the rush hour home for the weekend.

However I will admit that the British way falls down during the week when we say On

Monday, Tuesday Wednesday Thursday and Friday. And we cannot explain why to our American cousins. We insist upon saying "at the weekend".

It is on A weekday but AT a weekend.

The British try to explain it by saying you cannot possibly and physical be on top of a weekend like you would be on top of a cupboard, to which the Americans reply . WT*

This debate will continue in many pubs and bars and on many internet forums like this for eternity.

"on the weekend on Easter on Christmas on Halloween" will always sound wrong to a Native Brit, however "on new years eve or on new years day", for some reason does not. This is an extension of "on Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday/Friday/Saturday/Sunday"

Hi Richard,

In the English curriculum in Iraq, the ministry of Education depends the British English grammar.

Accordingly “at the weekend” is a fixed rule that students study which is presented with other prepositions.

I know there are a lot of details but these are simplified rules that we studied at school.

If you take weekend and look at it as a phrase, you can have week’s end.

so, At the week’s end, we shall do something.

Now, if you wanted to talk about a specific day, you would say

On Monday we start our work week.

If you treat Saturday and Sunday as one event / day you can say:

On the weekend we shall relax.

So, my guess might be some locations treat it the first way while others treat it the second way.