year
/jɪə/ noun
Forms years yeah yeare yeer yeere yere yur
- noun A period of time akin to the time taken for the Earth to undergo a full cycle of seasons. “we moved to this town a year ago; I quit smoking exactly one year ago”
- noun The time taken for the Earth to return to the same position along the ecliptic, completing a full cycle of seasons; a tropical year or solar year.
- noun The time taken for the Earth to orbit the Sun with respect to the fixed stars; a sidereal year.
- noun The length of twelve lunations; the time taken for any moon phase to happen twelve times; a lunar year.
- noun The length of a year as marked by a calendar, 365 or 366 days in the Gregorian calendar; a calendar year.
- noun The mean length of a calendar year in the Julian calendar, that is, 365.25 solar days; a Julian year.
- noun (by extension) An orbital period: the period of one revolution in any particular orbit: The time it takes for any astronomical object (such as a planet, dwarf planet, small Solar System body, or comet) in direct orbit around a star (such as the Sun) to make one revolution around the star. “Mars goes around the sun once in a Martian year, or 1.88 Earth years.”
- noun A period between set dates that mark a year, such as from January 1 to December 31 by the Gregorian calendar, from Tishri 1 to Elul 29 by the Jewish calendar, and from Muharram 1 to Dhu al-Hijjah 29 or 30 by the Islamic calendar. “A normal year has 365 full days, but there are 366 days in a leap year.”
Synonyms
annum mul:a solar year equinoctial year sun Theban year twelvemonth anomalistic year galactic year Gaussian year Great Year lunar year Platonic year sidereal year Sothic year tropical year calendar year civil year legal year winter (one of an especially great number of years, yr class
Etymology
From Middle English yeer, yere, from Old English ġēar (“year”), from Proto-West Germanic *jār, from Proto-Germanic *jērą (“year”), from Proto-Indo-European *yóh₁r̥ (“year, spring”). Doublet of hora and hour.
Cognate with Scots year (“year”), North Frisian djooar, iir, Jaar, jeer, juar, jäär (“year”), Saterland Frisian Jíer (“year”), West Frisian jier (“year”), Bavarian Joahr, Jåar, Jåhr (“year”), Cimbrian djar, jaar (“year”), Dutch jaar (“year”), German Jahr (“year”), Limburgish jaor, Johr, Joër (“year”), Low German Johr, Jåhr (“year”), Luxembourgish Joer (“year”), Mòcheno jor (“year”), Swabian Johr (“year”), Vilamovian jür (“year”), West Flemish joar (“year”), Yiddish יאָר (yor), יאָהר (yohr, “year”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish år (“year”), Faroese and Icelandic ár (“year”), Gothic 𐌾𐌴𐍂 (jēr, “year”).
Webster’s 1913
- noun The time of the apparent revolution of the sun trough the ecliptic; the period occupied by the earth in making its revolution around the sun, called the astronomical year; also, a period more or less nearly agreeing with this, adopted by various nations as a measure of time, and called the civil year; as, the common lunar year of 354 days, still in use among the Mohammedans; the year of 360 days, etc. In common usage, the year consists of 365 days, and every fourth year (called bissextile, or leap year) of 366 days, a day being added to February on that year, on account of the excess above 365
- noun The time in which any planet completes a revolution about the sun; as, the year of Jupiter or of Saturn.
Etymology [OE. yer, yeer, ýer, AS. geár; akin to OFries. i, g, D. jaar, OHG. jar, G. jahr, Icel. ar, Dan. aar, Sw. år, Goth. j, Gr. yare year. sq. root4, 279. Cf. Hour, Yore.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “year”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details