YEAR

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does year mean? 

• YEAR (noun)
  The noun YEAR has 4 senses:

1. a period of time containing 365 (or 366) days

2. a period of time occupying a regular part of a calendar year that is used for some particular activity

3. the period of time that it takes for a planet (as, e.g., Earth or Mars) to make a complete revolution around the sun

4. a body of students who graduate together

  Familiarity information: YEAR used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• YEAR (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A period of time containing 365 (or 366) days

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Synonyms:

twelvemonth; year; yr

Context example:

in the year 1920

Hypernyms ("year" is a kind of...):

period; period of time; time period (an amount of time)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "year"):

New Year (the calendar year just begun)

Y2K (the year 2000 in the Gregorian calendar)

year of grace (any year of the Christian era)

annum ((Latin) year)

financial year; fiscal year (any accounting period of 12 months)

calendar year; civil year (the year (reckoned from January 1 to December 31) according to Gregorian calendar)

off year (a year in which productivity is low or inferior)

off year (a year in which no major political elections are held)

366 days; bissextile year; intercalary year; leap year (a calendar year with an extra day added in February)

365 days; common year (a year that is not a leap year)

Holy Year ((Roman Catholic Church) a period of remission from sin (usually granted every 25 years))

Christian year; church year (the year in the ecclesiastical calendar; especially feast days and special seasons)

Holonyms ("year" is a part of...):

decade; decennary; decennium (a period of 10 years)

Derivation:

yearly (occurring or payable every year)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A period of time occupying a regular part of a calendar year that is used for some particular activity

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Context example:

a school year

Hypernyms ("year" is a kind of...):

period; period of time; time period (an amount of time)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "year"):

academic year; school year (the period of time each year when the school is open and people are studying)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The period of time that it takes for a planet (as, e.g., Earth or Mars) to make a complete revolution around the sun

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Context example:

a Martian year takes 687 of our days

Hypernyms ("year" is a kind of...):

period; period of time; time period (an amount of time)

Meronyms (parts of "year"):

month (a time unit of approximately 30 days)

season; time of year (one of the natural periods into which the year is divided by the equinoxes and solstices or atmospheric conditions)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "year"):

anomalistic year (time of the earth's revolution from perihelion to perihelion again; 365 days and 6 hr and 13 min and 53.1 sec)

astronomical year; equinoctial year; solar year; tropical year (the time for the earth to make one revolution around the sun, measured between two vernal equinoxes)

lunar year (a period of 12 lunar months)

sidereal year (the time for the earth to make one complete revolution around the sun, relative to the fixed stars)

Sense 4

Meaning:

A body of students who graduate together

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Synonyms:

class; year

Context example:

she was in my year at Hoehandle High

Hypernyms ("year" is a kind of...):

assemblage; gathering (a group of persons together in one place)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "year"):

senior class (final grade or class in high school or college)

junior class (penultimate class in high school or college)

sophomore class (the second class in a four-year college or high school)

freshman class (the first class in college or high school)

graduating class (the body of students who graduate together this year)

 Context examples 

He asked me the history of my earlier years.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

When Anderson first introduced me to his family, about two years ago, his sister was not out, and I could not get her to speak to me.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

She seemed to have got a great distance away from me, in little more than a year.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

This would be in the year 1878, after he had been eight or nine years in England.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

At first I think maybe he is her husband. But he is too young. Also, they make two beds at night. He is maybe twenty years old.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

The recurrences may appear several years after the initial diagnosis.

(Multicystic Mesothelioma, NCI Thesaurus)

A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

I have a French feather-bed there, which I have been at pains to keep these years back.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Consider how many years I have had the start of you.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

“They discovered him a year ago,” said Miss Burnet, who had sat up and was now intently following the conversation.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)