weekend vs period of time

weekend and period of time both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
weekend	Yes	No	Yes	No
period of time	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, period of time is a hypernym of weekend; that is, period of time is a word with a broader meaning than weekend:

weekend: a time period usually extending from Friday night through Sunday; more loosely defined as any period of successive days including one and only one Sunday
period of time: an amount of time

Other hypernyms of weekend include period, time period.

weekend (noun)	period of time (noun)
a time period usually extending from Friday night through Sunday; more loosely defined as any period of successive days including one and only one Sunday	an amount of time

weekend (verb)	period of time (verb)
spend the weekend