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What´s the difference between biannual, biennial, and semiannual?

Biannual, Biennial, Semiannual

"Biannual" and "semiannual" both mean "twice a year." "Biennial" means "every two years." Because of the possible confusion between "biannual" and "biennial," use "semiannual" when you want to describe something that occurs twice a year.

Comments

7/31/2009 11:30:01 AM
Rick said:

This tip both helps the reader understand the intent of the words, but also helps remember the spelling difference associated with the difference in meaning.

9/26/2011 7:49:07 AM
Paddy Busulwa said:

Thanks a lot for this. It has always been causing confusion among our team here.

2/3/2012 2:23:38 PM
Joseph Dooley said:

Ha, just cited this site to my coworkers. We were engaged in rigorous debate whether our system was inspected biannually or semiannually.

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