Word of the Day: biannual

• \bye-AN-yuh-wul\ • adjective

1 : occurring twice a year 2 : occurring every two years

Example sentence:
The report recommended that we begin conducting a more frequent annual safety review rather than our current biannual review.
Raportul recomandă ca să începem realizarea unei revizuiri de siguranţă mai frecvente şi anume mai bine anuală decât bianuală cum se face în prezent.

When we describe something as biannual, we can mean either that it occurs twice a year or that it occurs once every two years. So how does someone know which particular meaning we have in mind? Well, unless we provide them with a contextual clue, they don’t. Some people prefer to use semiannual to refer to something that occurs twice a year, reserving biannual for things that occur once every two years. Among English speakers, biannual remains a potentially ambiguous word. Fortunately, English also provides us with biennial, a word that specifically refers to something that occurs every two years or that lasts or continues for two years.