biennial

adjective

bi·en·ni·al (ˌ)bī-ˈe-nē-əl

: occurring every two years

a biennial celebration

: continuing or lasting for two years

specifically, of a plant : growing vegetatively during the first year and fruiting and dying during the second

Biennial herbs flower in their second year.

biennial noun

biennially

(ˌ)bī-ˈe-nē-ə-lē

adverb

What do bimonthly and biweekly mean?: Usage Guide

Many people are puzzled about bimonthly and biweekly, which are often ambiguous because they are formed from two different senses of bi-: "occurring every two" and "occurring two times." This ambiguity has been in existence for nearly a century and a half and cannot be eliminated by the dictionary. The chief difficulty is that many users of these words assume that others know exactly what they mean, and they do not bother to make their context clear. So if you need bimonthly or biweekly, you should leave some clues in your context to the sense of bi- you mean. And if you need the meaning "twice a," you can substitute semi- for bi-. Biannual and biennial are usually differentiated.

Did you know?

Biennial conventions, celebrations, competitions, and sports events come every two years. Biennials are plants that live two years, bearing flowers and fruit only in the second year. (Carrots and sugar beets are two examples; since we're only interested in their roots, we don't wait another year to see their flower and fruit.) In contrast, semiannual means "twice a year". But no one can agree whether biweekly means "twice a week" or "every two weeks", and whether bimonthly means "twice a month" or "every two months". Maybe we should stop using both of them until we can decide.

Examples of biennial in a Sentence

The governor explained the biennial budget proposal.

Recent Examples on the Web The Solheim Cup is a biennial event where professional women golfers representing the U.S. and Europe go head-to-head, similar to the Ryder Cup that is expected to take place next week. —

Scott Thompson, Fox News, 22 Sep. 2023 The bricks show up singly or in stacks across biennial venues. —

Briana Miller | , oregonlive, 11 Sep. 2023 The 44th edition of the biennial Ryder Cup competition will pit the best male golfers from the United States against the best from Europe in a unique team match play format. —

Steve Gardner, USA TODAY, 7 Sep. 2023 In May, Republican Gov. Doug Burgum approved a one-time $1.86 million appropriation to 988 in the state's biennial budget. —

Christina Saint Louis, CBS News, 31 Aug. 2023 The biennial competition features 12 golfers from the United States against 12 from Europe. —

Mark Inabinett | Minabinett@al.com, al, 29 Aug. 2023 The biennial Five Star Sensation food and wine benefit was held under soaring white tents at Cuyahoga Community College in Highland Hills on Saturday. —

cleveland, 27 Aug. 2023 Warning signs Joel Kitchens, the conservative Wisconsin State Assembly member whose district includes Door County, sensed his party had a problem even before the biennial survey of his constituents went out. —

Carolyn Van Houten, Washington Post, 23 Aug. 2023 As one of the Ryder Cup’s co-organizers, the PGA certainly can make that happen, though all of the biennial event’s venues have been awarded through 2029 and the next-available Ryder Cup on American soil is 2037. —

Brad Townsend, Dallas News, 7 May 2023 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'biennial.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.