Yearly
adjectiveHappening once a year or every year.
How to spell yearly
6 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce yearly
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does yearly mean?
- adjectiveHappening once a year or every year.
Yearly in a sentence
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The company files a yearly report for its shareholders.
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Members pay a yearly subscription to keep their access.
Where does yearly come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This word grows from the Old English noun gear, meaning 'a year', combined with the native suffix -lic (which became -ly), so it literally meant 'in a yearly manner' or 'of each year'. The root gear traces back to a Proto-Germanic word for a season or the turning of the year, a relative of the Dutch jaar and German Jahr. The -ly suffix descends from the same Old English -lic that originally meant 'having the form or body of', the very element that also gave us 'like'. Yearly has been used in English since well before the Norman Conquest, making it one of the genuinely native English words rather than a Latin or French borrowing. Its spelling stays reassuringly regular, with the only mild trap being the 'ea' vowel pairing carried over from 'year'.
How the word is built
- year (a twelve-month period, from Old English gear)
- -ly (adverb/adjective suffix)
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