叠辞迟丑!听 Bimonthly听can refer to something happening “every two months” or “twice a month.” Yep,听bimonthly has, fittingly enough, two meanings.
What does bi– mean?
The prefix听bi-听means “two,” from the Latin听bis, “twice.” The suffix -ly, which usually forms adverbs, is used in bimonthly to mean 鈥渆very.鈥� It鈥檚 used in the same way in several other units of time, including hourly, daily, monthly, and yearly.
What does bimonthly mean?
The first records of the word bimonthly come from the 1800s. A bimonthly publication can come out two times a month (on the second and last Friday, for instance) or every two months (January, then March, then May, and so on).
Different prefixes can be added to monthly to indicate a different period of time, such as in trimonthly (every three months or three times a month) and semimonthly (twice a month). When intended to mean 鈥渢wice a month,鈥� bimonthly is sometimes replaced with semimonthly for clarity, but this might not help, especially since semimonthly is much less common.
Dive deeper into the meaning of bimonthly here.
What does biweekly mean?
Now, what if your boss schedules biweekly meetings with you? Does that mean they occur twice a week (Tuesday and Thursday, for instance) or that you meet one time every two weeks (the first and last Mondays of the month, say)? It could mean both!
Then there’s听biannual. A biannual event could take place twice a year (June, then December, for example) or every other year (2019, 2021, etc.). Honestly, we don’t even know what time it is anymore.
Find out what other words are related to biweekly here!
Is there a clearer way to indicate dates?
Enter semi–, a prefix meaning “half” (also from Latin).听Semimonthly is generally taken as “twice a month,” as if it cuts the month in half.听Semiweekly happens听“twice a week.” Semiyearly or semiannual falls听“twice a year.”
If these words don’t come quickly to mind, you can always just be specific: “I’m setting up meetings twice a week” or “Let’s meet every other week.”
Or, you can take a page from British English’s playbook and use fortnightly. A fortnight is a period of two weeks.听Fun fact: the fort in fortnight has nothing to do with Fort McHenry or the pillow forts you built as a kid. The word is smushed down from the Middle English听fourtennight, from Old English听蹿脓辞飞别谤迟脓苍别听苍颈丑迟鈥�the span of听fourteen nights (days).
If all else fails, context, context, context! If you get a new job that pays biweekly, odds are鈥攇iven how the world works and all鈥攜ou get paid every other week. But hey, if you want to pay us twice a week, go ahead then!
While we’re on this note …
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