year Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a period of time containing 365 (or 366) days
    yr; twelvemonth.
    • she is 4 years old
    • in the year 1920
  2. noun a period of time occupying a regular part of a calendar year that is used for some particular activity
    • a school year
  3. noun the period of time that it takes for a planet (as, e.g., Earth or Mars) to make a complete revolution around the sun
    • a Martian year takes 687 of our days
  4. noun a body of students who graduate together
    class.
    • the class of '97
    • she was in my year at Hoehandle High

WordNet

Year noun
Etymology
OE. yer, yeer, ýer, AS. geár; akin to OFries. ir, gr, D. jaar, OHG. jar, G. jahr, Icel. ar, Dan. aar, Sw. år, Goth. jr, Gr. a season of the year, springtime, a part of the day, an hour, a year, Zend yare year. , 279. Cf. Hour, Yore.
Definitions
  1. The time of the apparent revolution of the sun trough the ecliptic; the period occupied by the earth in making its revolution around the sun, called the astronomical year; also, a period more or less nearly agreeing with this, adopted by various nations as a measure of time, and called the civil year; as, the common lunar year of 354 days, still in use among the Mohammedans; the year of 360 days, etc. In common usage, the year consists of 365 days, and every fourth year (called bissextile, or leap year) of 366 days, a day being added to February on that year, on account of the excess above 365 days (see Bissextile).
    Of twenty year of age he was, I guess. Chaucer.
    ✍ The civil, or legal, year, in England, formerly commenced on the 25th of March. This practice continued throughout the British dominions till the year 1752.
  2. The time in which any planet completes a revolution about the sun; as, the year of Jupiter or of Saturn.
  3. pl. Age, or old age; as, a man in years. Shak.

Webster 1913