Anniversary

How to spell anniversary

11 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce anniversary

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does anniversary mean?

1. nounThe yearly return of the date on which a notable event occurred, often marked by a celebration.

Anniversary in a sentence

• They booked a quiet restaurant to celebrate their wedding anniversary.

• The company marked its fiftieth anniversary with a staff dinner.

Where does anniversary come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin anniversarius, an adjective meaning 'returning yearly', which was built from two parts: annus, meaning 'year', and vertere, meaning 'to turn'. The literal sense was therefore something that 'turns round again' as each year comes back to the same point. In medieval Latin the word was used as a noun for the yearly observance of a saint's death or a religious commemoration, and it passed into English through that church usage during the 1200s. The annus root also gives us 'annual', 'biennial' and 'annuity', while vertere lies behind 'reverse', 'convert' and 'version'. The spelling trap sits at the front: it takes a double n (from annus), but only a single v and a single s, so the temptation to double the wrong letters is the usual stumble.

How the word is built

• ann- (year, from Latin annus)
• -i- (connective vowel)
• vers (turn, from Latin vertere)
• -ary (noun suffix)