- 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
- a period of more or less the same length in other calendars
- 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 seasonsalso tropical year or equinoctial year or solar year
- 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 equinoxesalso sidereal year
- a period of 12 lunar months, as in the Jewish calendaralso lunar year
- 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 planetsalso anomalistic year
- a period of 12 calendar months reckoned from any date: a year from today
- a calendar year of a specified number in a particular era: the year 500
- a particular annual period of fewer than 365 days: a school year
- [pl.]
- age: old for his years
- time; esp., a long time: he died years ago
Origin of year
Middle English yere from Old English gear, akin to German jahr from Indo-European an unverified form y?ro-, year, summer (from source Classical Greek h?ros, time, year, Old Church Slavonic jara, spring) from base an unverified form ei-, to go (from source Classical Latin ire, to go): basic sense “that which passes”year after year
year by year
year in, year out