year
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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4 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "year", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "year" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "year" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
year is aEnglishnoun. It means: A period of time akin to the time taken for the Earth to undergo a full cycle of seasons. Pronounced /jɪə/. It ranks #117 in English word frequency. Often confused with yr and yet.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | year |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /jɪə/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #117 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for year is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /jɪə/. Corpus data places it at rank #117 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 5 documented wrong-spelling variants for year, with forms such as "eyar", "yaer", and "yearr". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "yr", "yet", "yes", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English yeer, yere, from Old English ġēar (“year”), from Proto-West Germanic *jār, from Proto-Germanic *jērą (“year”), from Proto-Indo-European *yóh₁r̥ (“year, spring”). Doublet of hora and hour. Cognates Cognate with Scots year (“year”), North … Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is year, spelled Y-E-A-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A period of time akin to the time taken for the Earth to undergo a full cycle of seasons.
- 2A period of time akin to the time taken for the Earth to undergo a full cycle of seasons.
- 3A period of time akin to the time taken for the Earth to undergo a full cycle of seasons.
- 4A period of time akin to the time taken for the Earth to undergo a full cycle of seasons.
- 5A period of time akin to the time taken for the Earth to undergo a full cycle of seasons.
- 6A period of time akin to the time taken for the Earth to undergo a full cycle of seasons.
- 7An orbital period: the period of one revolution in any particular orbit: The time it takes for any astronomical object (such as a planet, dwarf planet, small Solar System body, or comet) in direct orbit around a star (such as the Sun) to make one revolution around the star.
- 8A period between set dates that mark a year, such as from January 1 to December 31 by the Gregorian calendar, from Tishri 1 to Elul 29 by the Jewish calendar, and from Muharram 1 to Dhu al-Hijjah 29 or 30 by the Islamic calendar.
- 9A scheduled part of a calendar year spent in a specific activity.
- 10A scheduled part of a calendar year spent in a specific activity.
- 11The proportion of a creature's lifespan equivalent to one year of an average human lifespan (see also dog year).
Etymology
From Middle English yeer, yere, from Old English ġēar (“year”), from Proto-West Germanic *jār, from Proto-Germanic *jērą (“year”), from Proto-Indo-European *yóh₁r̥ (“year, spring”). Doublet of hora and hour. Cognates Cognate with Scots year (“year”), North Frisian djooar, iir, Jaar, jeer, juar, jäär (“year”), Saterland Frisian Jíer (“year”), West Frisian jier (“year”), Bavarian Joahr, Jåar, Jåhr (“year”), Cimbrian djar, jaar (“year”), Dutch jaar (“year”), German Jahr (“year”), Limburgish jaor, Johr, Joër (“year”), Low German Johr, Jåhr (“year”), Luxembourgish Joer (“year”), Mòcheno jor (“year”), Swabian Johr (“year”), Vilamovian jür (“year”), West Flemish joar (“year”), Yiddish יאָר (yor), יאָהר (yohr, “year”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish år (“year”), Faroese, Icelandic ár (“year”), Gothic 𐌾𐌴𐍂 (jēr, “year”).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: eyar,yaer,yearr,yera,yyear
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for year
Misspelling Variants of "year"
Frequency rank: #117 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter Y in our English index: