year

year or sidereal year [yir]

n.

[ME yere < OE gear, akin to Ger jahr < IE * yēro-, year, summer (> Gr hōros, time, year, OSlav jara, spring) < base * ei-, to go (> L ire, to go): basic sense “that which passes”]

1.

a) a period of 365 days (in a leap year, 366 days) divided into 12 months and regarded in the Gregorian calendar as beginning Jan. 1 and ending the following Dec. 31

b) a period of more or less the same length in other calendars

2. the period (365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds of mean solar time) spent by the sun in making its apparent passage from vernal equinox to vernal equinox: the year of the seasons: also tropical year or equinoctial year or solar year

3. the period (365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes, and 9.54 seconds of mean solar time) spent by the sun in its apparent passage from a fixed star and back to the same position again: it is the true period of the earth's revolution, and the difference in time between this and the tropical year is due to the precession of the equinoxes: also sidereal year

4. a period of 12 lunar months, as in the Jewish calendar: also lunar year

5. the period of time occupied by any planet in making one complete revolution from perihelion to perihelion: for the earth this period is 365 days, 6 hours, 13 minutes, and 53 seconds: it is slightly longer than the sidereal year due to the extra time needed to reach an advancing perihelion, the lag being caused by the gravitational pull of the other planets: also anomalistic year

6. a period of 12 calendar months reckoned from any date [a year from today]

7. a calendar year of a specified number in a particular era [the year 500 B.C.]

8. a particular annual period of less than 365 days [a school year]

9. [pl.]

a) age [old for his years]

b) time; esp., a long time [he died years ago]

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year after year

every year or for many successive years

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year by year

each year

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year in, year out

every year