Why does bi weekly mean

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Discuss these biweekly definitions with the community: 0 Comments. I was taught that biweekly and bimonthly meant twice a week and twice a month, respectively. I can even reference this in my very old dictiionaries as being correct. When did this change? If biannually is always twice a year, why are not bimonthly and biweekly twice a month and twice a week? It had started to change by the time I was in library school in , when I was taught that "biweekly" meant once every two weeks, but "bimonthly" could mean either twice a month or once every two months, and we were better off using "semimonthly" to mean twice a month, and leave "bimonthly" to match "biweekly" in meaning.

Though I have been at times confused myself in the past, I don't understand any current confusion and am frankly incredulous of differing "past meanings.

Simple enough, no? JerryB Sep The below conclusion unfortunately does not account for "biannually", which always means twice a year verses biennially, meaning every other year. I have conducted some superficial research, and it appears as though this shift occurred between and , and was brought about by the publication industry I guess it just took too much printing space to use every other week and every other month. Webster came through with a wonderfully thorough definition, and an exact timing of when this occurred over a century ago!!!

I guess my old dictionaries were remiss not to include both definitions. Here's the link to see their explanation. Anthony2 Sep Logically speaking, "bi" means "two". So why shouldn't "biweekly" and "bimonthly" mean "2 weeks" and "2 months", respectively?

Also I always used "biannually" to mean "2 years", and "semianually" to mean "twice a year". I also use bi-annually, monthly, weekly to mean every other year, month week. It never occurred to me that it would be otherwise, but, guess what? If you check the dictionary, BOTH meanings are listed for each word. Kinda makes the words useless, doesn't it, if they're completely ambiguous?

By the way, I'm a pilot, and the FAA refers to Biannual flight reviews as taking place every two years. I guess that's the problem I have always used bi-annually as meaning every six months, and that was what I was taught. We could talk until we're blue in the face about this quiz on words for the color "blue," but we think you should take the quiz and find out if you're a whiz at these colorful terms. Words related to biweekly fortnightly. Dorothy at Skyrie Evelyn Raymond.

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