The Collaborative International Dictionary
Year \Year\, n. [OE. yer, yeer, [yogh]er, AS. ge['a]r; akin to OFries. i?r, g?r, D. jaar, OHG. j[=a]r, G. jahr, Icel. [=a]r, Dan. aar, Sw. [*a]r, Goth. j?r, Gr. ? a season of the year, springtime, a part of the day, an hour, ? a year, Zend y[=a]re year. [root]4, 279. Cf. Hour, Yore.]
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The time of the apparent revolution of the sun trough the ecliptic; the period occupied by the earth in making its revolution around the sun, called the astronomical year; also, a period more or less nearly agreeing with this, adopted by various nations as a measure of time, and called the civil year; as, the common lunar year of 354 days, still in use among the Mohammedans; the year of 360 days, etc. In common usage, the year consists of 365 days, and every fourth year (called bissextile, or leap year) of 366 days, a day being added to February on that year, on account of the excess above 365 days (see Bissextile).
Of twenty year of age he was, I guess.
--Chaucer.Note: The civil, or legal, year, in England, formerly commenced on the 25th of March. This practice continued throughout the British dominions till the year 175
2. The time in which any planet completes a revolution about the sun; as, the year of Jupiter or of Saturn.
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pl. Age, or old age; as, a man in years.
--Shak.Anomalistic year, the time of the earth's revolution from perihelion to perihelion again, which is 365 days, 6 hours, 13 minutes, and 48 seconds.
A year's mind (Eccl.), a commemoration of a deceased person, as by a Mass, a year after his death. Cf. A month's mind, under Month.
Bissextile year. See Bissextile.
Canicular year. See under Canicular.
Civil year, the year adopted by any nation for the computation of time.
Common lunar year, the period of 12 lunar months, or 354 days.
Common year, each year of 365 days, as distinguished from leap year.
Embolismic year, or Intercalary lunar year, the period of 13 lunar months, or 384 days.
Fiscal year (Com.), the year by which accounts are reckoned, or the year between one annual time of settlement, or balancing of accounts, and another.
Great year. See Platonic year, under Platonic.
Gregorian year, Julian year. See under Gregorian, and Julian.
Leap year. See Leap year, in the Vocabulary.
Lunar astronomical year, the period of 12 lunar synodical months, or 354 days, 8 hours, 48 minutes, 36 seconds.
Lunisolar year. See under Lunisolar.
Periodical year. See Anomalistic year, above.
Platonic year, Sabbatical year. See under Platonic, and Sabbatical.
Sidereal year, the time in which the sun, departing from any fixed star, returns to the same. This is 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes, and 9.3 seconds.
Tropical year. See under Tropical.
Year and a day (O. Eng. Law), a time to be allowed for an act or an event, in order that an entire year might be secured beyond all question.
--Abbott.Year of grace, any year of the Christian era; Anno Domini; A. D. or a. d.
Wiktionary
n. The orbital period of the Earth; a measure of the time it takes for the Sun to return to the same position with respect to the stars of the celestial sphere. A sidereal year is about 20.4 minutes longer than the tropical year due to precession of the equinoxes.
WordNet
n. the time for the earth to make one complete revolution around the sun, relative to the fixed stars
Wikipedia
A sidereal year (from Latin sidus "asterism, star") is the time taken by the Earth to orbit the Sun once with respect to the fixed stars. Hence it is also the time taken for the Sun to return to the same position with respect to the fixed stars after apparently travelling once around the ecliptic. It equals for the J2000.0 epoch.
The sidereal year differs from the tropical year, the time interval between vernal equinoxes in successive years, due to the precession of the equinoxes. The sidereal year is 20 min 24.5 s longer than the mean tropical year at J2000.0 (365.242189 days), and is 19 min 57.8 s longer than the average year of the Gregorian calendar (it is the tropical year that is approximated by the average Gregorian year of 365.2425 days).
Before the discovery of the precession of the equinoxes by Hipparchus in the Hellenistic period, the difference between sidereal and tropical year was unknown. For naked-eye observation, the shift of the constellations relative to the equinoxes only becomes apparent over centuries or " ages", and pre-modern calendars such as Hesiod's Works and Days would give the times of the year for sowing, harvest, and so by reference to the first visibility of stars, effectively using the sidereal year.
Usage examples of "sidereal year".
Time in a fairy fort moves at a rapid rate, and a sidereal year was eight years in the life of Dhrun.
The only two units of time that could be considered to be relatively permanent (for humans in the relative short term) are the rotational period of the Earth and the sidereal year.
It was almost a sidereal year after I had brought Giyan back to Axis Tyr.
Even the fact that its sidereal year was twice that of Earth, with winters and summers lasting ten months, did not form an insurmountable obstacle to its settlement.
Since Resources and Supplies had agitated in council for another breadbasket planet in that sector of the galaxy and Zobranoirundisi was unoccupied, we were sent in, chartered to be self-sufficient in one sidereal year and to produce a surplus in two.
The Babylonians determined the sidereal year at 365 days, 6 hours, and 11 minutes.
Here each citizen reported to the Plan of Man the number of tokens he had received for his work in the previous sidereal year, whereupon he was forced to give up a share of 'them.
We were counting on a seasonal dust storm to occur at about this time of the Martian sidereal year and had made our plans accordingly.
The rotational period was approximately 24 hours, the sidereal year nearly 12 months, the axial tilt a neat but not gaudy 11^ degrees.