biennial
adjective
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
Hope Karnopp, jsonline.com, 7 July 2025
Despite those surpluses, and projections for more black ink in the next few years, the governor and his fellow Democrats in the General Assembly’s majority adopted a new, $55.8 billion, biennial budget that assumed most unionized employees would not be getting their raises on time this July 1.
—Keith M. Phaneuf, Hartford Courant, 3 July 2025
That means the $300 million biennial injection could translate to over $1.4 billion in economic activity every two years.
—Ana Gutierrez, Austin American Statesman, 2 July 2025
Legislators in the Indiana House of Representatives proposed a biennial budget, House Bill 1001, that did not include the state's usual 50% funding match utilized to support the program, the South Bend Tribune reported.
—Audrey Gibbs, The Tennessean, 2 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for biennial
Cite this Entry
“Biennial.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/biennial. Accessed 18 Jul. 2025.
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biennial
adjective
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