year

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English yeer, also yere,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English ġēar in West Saxon and ġēr in Anglian,^[5][6][7] inherited from Proto-Germanic *jērą.^[1][5] It is cognate with Old Frisian jēr, Old Saxon jār, Old High German jār, German Jahr, Dutch jaar, Old Norse ár and Gothic 𐌾𐌴𐍂 (jēr),^{[8][9][10][6]} and outside Germanic with Avestan yārə (“year”), Ancient Greek ὧρος (hôros, “year”) and ὥρα (hṓrā, “season, year, time of day”), Czech jaro (“spring”) and Latin hornus (“of this year”).^{[8][5][4][11][7]} Wiktionary reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *yóh₁r̥ (“year, spring”);^[1] Etymonline gives the root as *yer- (“year, season”), following Watkins, perhaps originally "that which makes a complete cycle",^[5] and Kroonen reconstructs a heteroclitic noun whose old inflection survives in Avestan.^[10] Ayto mentions the speculation that the Indo-European forms come from a base meaning "go", so that the underlying idea would be time moving on.^[11] Through Latin hōra the Greek word is the source of hour.^[11][4][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The time the earth takes to go round the sun, about 365¼ days: Old English, in the translation of Bede (with the unchanged plural) and in Ælfric.^[8] Barnhart dates the Old English word to 900–930, and the Middle English spelling yeir to before 1325, in the Cursor Mundi.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Already in Old English the word was used of a calendar year, of the church year with its seasons and holy days, and of the year as the cycle of seasons and crops.^[8] Middle English also used it for any period of about twelve months, whatever its starting point,^[5] and the plural years for age or a period of life is recorded from the early 13th century.^[5][6] In Old English the word was usually a neuter noun with an unchanged plural; the -s plural became usual in Middle English, but the old plural after numbers (two year old) survives in colloquial and regional speech.^[8][13] Later specialised uses include the year of another planet (1603) and twelve-month periods with other starting dates, for taxes, sport or farming (1794).^[8] Johnson (1755) noted that year could mean 360 days, a solar year of 365 days or a lunar year of 354 days.^[14] Word Origins explains leap year, used from the 14th century, by feast days after February falling two weekdays later than in the year before instead of one.^[12] In American underworld slang a year was a dollar.^[15]

Timeline

• 900–930 – Old English ġēar, the year as a unit of time.^[9][8]
• early 13th century – years, age, period of life.^[5]
• c. 1384 – the produce of a particular year.^[8]
• before 1387 – the "great year" of ancient astronomers, after which the heavens return to the same position.^[8]
• 1603 – the time another planet takes to go round the sun.^[8]
• 1794 – a twelve-month cycle beginning on another date, for taxation, sport or farming.^[8]
• 1949 – US underworld slang, a dollar.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. The time the earth takes to go once round the sun, about 365¼ days.^[16][2][8]
2. A calendar year, from 1 January to 31 December, with 365 days, or 366 in a leap year.^[16][8]
3. Any period of twelve months from a given date: She left two years ago.^[16]
4. A period of the year set aside for an activity, such as the school year or the fiscal year.^[16][8]
5. years: age, or a long time: He looks young for his years.^[5][6]
6. The time any other planet takes to go round the sun.^[8]

Related words

• hour
• horoscope
• horology

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
12. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
16. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins