year */*/*/

UK [jɪə(r)] / US [jɪr] noun
Word forms "year":
singular year plural years

1) [countable] a period of 365 days, or 366 in a leap year, divided into 12 months

He lived in Paris for a few years.

I started my job two years ago.

a) used for talking about age

years old:

Their house is only five years old.

b) used about a particular period of time, beginning on 1 January and ending on 31 December, or between the first and last dates on some other calendar

We're hoping to have the house sold by the end of the year.

They're showing two films from the year 1977.

last/next year (= the year before or after the present year):

Profits are lower than last year.

c) used about the period during which an institution operates, or about the system that it uses for dividing time

the first weeks of the new school year

the financial/fiscal/tax year:

a budget for the fiscal year 2002

2)

a) years

[plural] a very long time

It wasn't until years later that I realized how foolish I'd been.

for years:

He hasn't been back to the country for years.

b) used about a particular period of time in history

Conditions were very different in the postwar years (= the period after the war).

3) [countable] astronomy the amount of time that a planet takes to travel round the sun

•

a first/second/third etc year — British a student who is in their first/second/third etc year at school or university

- something puts years on someone

- year after year

- year by year

- the year dot

- year on year

- years of age

See:

million