Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary - year

(years) Frequency: The word is one of the 700 most common words in English. 1. A year is a period of twelve months or 365 or 366 days, beginning on the first of January and ending on the thirty-first of December. The year was 1840... We had an election last year. ...the number of people on the planet by the year 2050. N-COUNT see also leap year 2. A year is any period of twelve months. The museums attract more than two and a half million visitors a year... She’s done quite a bit of work this past year... The school has been empty for ten years. N-COUNT 3. Year is used to refer to the age of a person. For example, if someone or something is twenty years old or twenty years of age, they have lived or existed for twenty years. He’s 58 years old... I’ve been in trouble since I was eleven years of age... This column is ten years old today. N-COUNT: num N adj/prep 4. A school year or academic year is the period of time in each twelve months when schools or universities are open and students are studying there. In Britain and the United States, the school year starts in September. ...the 1990/91 academic year... The twins didn’t have to repeat their second year at school. N-COUNT: usu adj/ord N 5. You can refer to someone who is, for example, in their first year at school or university as a first year. (BRIT) The first years and second years got a choice of French, German and Spanish. N-COUNT: ord N 6. A financial or business year is an exact period of twelve months which businesses or institutions use as a basis for organizing their finances. (BUSINESS) He announced big tax increases for the next two financial years... The company admits it will make a loss for the year ending September. N-COUNT: with supp 7. You can use years to emphasize that you are referring to a long time. I haven’t laughed so much in years... It took me years to fully recover... = age N-PLURAL c darkgreen]emphasis 8. see also calendar year, fiscal year 9. If something happens year after year, it happens regularly every year. Regulars return year after year... PHRASE: PHR after v 10. If something changes year by year, it changes gradually each year. This problem has increased year by year... The department has been shrinking year by year because of budget cuts. PHRASE: PHR after v 11. If you say something happens all year round or all the year round, it happens continually throughout the year. Town gardens are ideal because they produce flowers nearly all year round... Drinking and driving is a problem all the year round. PHRASE: PHR after v, PHR with cl 12. donkey’s years: see donkey