Perennial

How to spell perennial

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce perennial

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does perennial mean?

1. adjectiveLasting or recurring continually, year after year.
2. nounA plant that lives for more than two years, regrowing each season.

Perennial in a sentence

• adjective

  Staffing shortages are a perennial problem in the hospital.

• noun

  She filled the border with a hardy perennial that returns every spring.

• adjective

  Funding the railway has been a perennial source of political argument.

• noun

  Unlike a bedding annual, this perennial survives the winter underground.

Where does perennial come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin perennis, which literally meant 'lasting through the year' or 'continuing all year round'. It was built from per, meaning 'through' or 'throughout', and annus, meaning 'year', the same root that gives English 'annual' and 'anniversary'. Roman writers used perennis for rivers and springs that flowed without drying up in summer, and the sense of unbroken continuity carried over when English adopted the word in the 1600s, first as 'perennial' in the form we still use. Gardeners later borrowed it for plants that survive from year to year, as opposed to annuals that die after a single season. The hidden double n is the spelling trap: it sits inside the buried Latin annus, so remembering 'annual' keeps the two n letters in place.

How the word is built

• per- (through)
• -enn- (from Latin annus: year)
• -ial (adjective suffix)