Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Leap Year |
Leap YearNoun1. In the Gregorian calendar: any year divisible by 4 except centenary years not divisible by 400. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
| Domain | Definitions |
Aerospace | See calendar year. (references) |
Literature | Leap Year Every year divisible by four. Such years occur every fourth year. In ordinary years the day of the month which falls on Monday this year, will fall on Tuesday next year, and Wednesday the year after; but the fourth year will leap over Thursday to Friday. This is because a day is added to February, which, of course, affects every subsequent day of the year. (See Bissextile .) The ladies propose, and, if not accepted, claim a silk gown. St. Patrick, having "driven the frogs out of the bogs," was walking along the shores of Lough Neagh, when he was accosted by St. Bridget in tears, and was told that a mutiny had broken out in the nunnery over which she presided, the ladies claiming the right of "popping the question." St. Patrick said he would concede them the right every seventh year, when St. Bridget threw her arms round his neck, and exclaimed, "Arrah, Pathrick, jewel, I daurn't go back to the girls wid such a proposal. Make it one year in four." St. Patrick replied, "Bridget, acushla, squeeze me that way again, an' I'll give ye leap-year, the longest of the lot." St. Bridget, upon this, popped the question to St. Patrick himself, who, of course, could not marry: so he patched up the difficulty as best he could with a kiss and a silk gown. The story told above is of no historic value, for an Act of the Scottish Parliament, passed in the year 1228, has been unearthed which runs thus:- "Ordonit that during ye reign of her maist blessed maiestie, Margaret, ilka maiden, ladee of baith high and lowe estait, shall hae libertie to speak ye man she likes. Gif he refuses to tak hir to bee his wyf, he shale be mulct in the sum of ane hundridty pundes, or less, as his estait may bee, except and alwais gif he can make it appeare that he is betrothit to anither woman, then he: schal be free." N.B. The year 1228 was, of course, a leap-year. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Space | Every fourth year, in which a 366th day is added since the Earth's revolution takes 365 days 5 hr 49 min. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The leap year (or intercalary year or bissextile year) is a method of keeping the calendar year in sync with the seasons. The Earth's seasons repeat once every tropical year (the time it takes the Earth to complete an orbit around the Sun). This is about 365.2422 days long, so a consistent 365-day calendar year would over time cause the seasons to slowly drift. By occasionally inserting (or intercalating) an additional day into the year, making it 366 days long instead of the usual 365, this can be corrected. In the Julian and Gregorian calendars this leap day or "intercalary" or "bissextile" day is added to February, making it 29 days long.
By Roman custom, the day added is actually February 24th, with the days following it renumbered. The Romans had marked days during a month: 1st (called calendae--hence "calendar"), 5th or 7th (nonae), 13th or 15th (idus). On these days important events like markets, festivities, and rituals took place. It is possible that in ancient times attempts were made to keep the months in sync with the lunar phasess: on occasion an additional day would be inserted inter calendae (hence "intercalary"), i.e. somewhere between those days that should be kept fixed. Now our leap day would repeat the 6th day before the 1st day of March (count including the 1st day itself, as was their custom): hence "bissextile" day, which falls to 24 Feb.
This historical nicety is, however, in the process of being discarded: The European Union declared that, starting in 2000, 29 Feb rather than 24 Feb would be leap day, and the Roman Catholic Church also now uses 29 Feb as leap day. The only tangible difference is felt in countries which celebrate 'name days'.
The rule specified by the Gregorian calendar for leap years is as follows:
The logic behind the above rules is as follows:
By adding a day every four years, an average year is adjusted to 365.25 days. However, this still causes a discrepancy with the vernal equinox tropical year. To make the average year more accurate, a leap year is cancelled in each century. This removes 0.01 days to bring the average to 365.24 days. Unfortunately this is still not accurate enough, hence the cancelled leap year returns once every four centuries. That adds back 0.0025 days to bring the average to 365.2425 days.
This adjusted average is still about 0.0001 days more than the actual mean interval between vernal equinoxes (365.242375 days). As a result, the Gregorian Calendar will still run about a half-day behind in 4000 years. Proposals have been made to add an additional rule: e.g. that years divisible by 4000 are not leap years. Such proposals have not been accepted, since the aim of the Gregorian calendar reform was to keep the vernal equinox steady in the calendar and the Gregorian calendar achieves this long-term goal well enough when considering the changing length of the vernal equinox year in the foreseeable future.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Leap year."
Synonyms: Leap YearSynonyms: bissextile year (n), intercalary year (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Instantaneity | Calendar year, leap year, Julian calendar, Gregorian calendar, Chinese calendar, Jewish calendar, perpetual calendar, Farmer's almanac, fiscal year. |
Regularity of recurrence Periodicity | Rota, cycle, period, stated time, routine; days of the week; Sunday, Monday; months of the year; January; feast, fast; Christmas, Easter, New Year's day; Allhallows, Allhallowmas, All Saints' Day; All Souls', All Souls' Day; Ash Wednesday, bicentennial, birthday, bissextile, Candlemas, Dewali, groundhog day, Halloween, Hallowmas, Lady day, leap year, Midsummer day, Muharram, woodchuck day, St. Swithin's day, natal day; yearbook; yuletide. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Leap Year |
| English words defined with "leap year": 365 days ♦ Bissextile, bissextile day ♦ Common year ♦ Dominical letter ♦ February 29 ♦ Hebrew calendar ♦ Jewish calendar ♦ leap day. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Movie/TV Titles | Leap Year (1932) A Leap Year Tangle (1916) Leap Year (1916) Woman's Privilege in Leap Year (1912) Leap Year Proposals (1912) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | The last day of leap year : "Dear me! he's so unresponsive!".Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
leap year | 175 |
calendar leap year | 17 |
first leap year | 7 |
2004 leap year | 5 |
algorithm leap year | 5 |
leap year calculation | 5 |
calculate leap year | 3 |
leap year rule | 2 |
day leap year | 2 |
day in leap year | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "leap year"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | vit i brishtë. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | سنة كبيسة (bissextile). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | високосна година (bissextile). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | přestupný rok. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Danish | skudår (leap-year). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Esperanto | superjaro (leap-year). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | karkauspäivä (Leap Year Day). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | bissextile. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | schaltjahr (bissextile, leapyear, leap-year). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | δίσεκτοσ χρόνοσ. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | ש ת עבור, ש " מעוברת. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | szökőév. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indonesian | tahun kabisat. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | anno bisestile (leap-year). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | 閏年 , うるう年 (finely chopped round herring). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | うるうどし, じゅ"ね". (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | blein vishee (bissextile). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | eaplay yearay lançar-se (boom, plunge, rush). (various references) високосный год (bissextile, intercalary year, leap-year). (various references) prestupna godina (bissextile). (various references) bisiesto (leap), año bisiesto (leap, leap-year). (various references) skottår (bissextile, leap-year). (various references) artık yıl. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-e-e-l-p-r-y" | |
-2 letters: earlap, leaper, paleae, parlay, parley, pearly, player, repeal, replay, yelper. | |
-3 letters: alary, apery, areae, areal, early, laree, layer, leary, leery, leper, palea, paler, parae, parle, payee, payer, pearl, peery, perea, playa, plyer, relay, repay, repel, reply. | |
-4 letters: aery, alae, alar, alee, aper, area, aryl, earl, eely, eery, eyer, eyra, eyre, leap, lear, leer, lyre, pale, paly, para, pare, peal, pear, peel, peer, pele, play, plea, pray, pree, prey, pyre, rale, rape, raya, real, reap, reel, rely, yare, year, yelp. | |
-5 letters: aal, ala, ale, alp, ape, are, aye, ear, eel, era, ere, eye, lap, lar, lay, lea, lee, ley, lye, pal, par, pay, pea, pee, per, ply, pry, pya, pye, rap, ray, ree, rep, rya, rye, yap, yar, yea, yep. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-e-e-l-p-r-y" | |
+1 letter: repayable. | |
+2 letters: separately. | |
+3 letters: paraldehyde. | |
+4 letters: nonrepayable, paraldehydes, parenterally. | |
+5 letters: exasperatedly, hypercalcemia, irreplaceably, preparatively, repeatability. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)4C 65 61 70 59 65 61 72 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01001100 01100101 01100001 01110000 00100000 01011001 01100101 01100001 01110010 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)L e a p   Y e a r |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)004C 0065 0061 0070 0059 0065 0061 0072 |
Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)46716782259716784 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Expressions: Internet | 9. Translations: Modern 10. Anagrams 11. Orthography 12. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
