Biweekly may also be used as a noun to describe a newspaper or magazine that prints once every two weeks. All content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only. This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional. Usually she gets everything on credit, and the lodgers pay their respective shares biweekly.
- This means that paychecks will be issued once every two weeks, usually on the same day.
- Related words are words that are directly connected to each other through their meaning, even if they are not synonyms or antonyms.
- But what about when you’re at the mercy of English as it’s wielded by others?
- I agree with those who suggested “fortnightly.” If someone feels that it’s antiquated or “odd,” that is their problem!
- Biweekly can mean twice a week or once every two weeks, but most people use it to refer to the latter.
Although this is an acceptable synonym for biweekly, it’s not a common term for American English speakers. We’ll dive deeper into the meaning of biweekly, why it sometimes confuses people, provide synonyms to avoid uncertainty, and discuss other time-related words that use the bi- prefix. In business meetings or official documents, “fortnightly” or “every other week” might be more appropriate.
Whether you’re scheduling meetings, setting reminders, or planning events, the frequency of these events is critical. But what if you wanted to convey the same idea without using the word “biweekly”? In this article, we’ll look at other ways to say “biweekly” and when it’s appropriate to use them. Biweekly is most often used in professional settings to describe the frequency of meetings or how often workers are paid.
In this case, the prefix bi- us is used to mean “occurring twice.” Use the word biennial to describe events occurring once every two years. Although not as commonly used, biweekly may also refer to a magazine or newspaper that publishes once every two weeks. Biweekly can mean twice a week or once every two weeks, but most people use it to refer to the latter. There are times, however, when a biweekly meeting on your work schedule may occur twice a week. If you’re communicating with someone from another country, especially from the UK, “fortnightly” might be more familiar to them. However, to avoid any confusion, it’s always a good idea to clarify.
Every Letter Is Silent, Sometimes: A-Z List of Examples
Take a (break/brake) and (pore/pour) over this (cache/cachet/cash) of questions about commonly confused words. Not everything has to be a single word, so don’t be afraid to use more than one word when you want to use clear, understandable, unambiguous language. Add biweekly to one of your lists below, or create a new one.
For, as anyone who pays attention to our work surely recognizes, we are at the mercy of the language. We diligently record the English lexicon in both its measured expansions and its wild proliferations, biweekly synonym and any insistence by us that it favor the former over the latter is as whispers into a gale. Biweekly and bimonthly each have a pair of meanings that are unhelpfully at odds with one another.
More from Merriam-Webster on biweekly
I agree with those who suggested “fortnightly.” If someone feels that it’s antiquated or “odd,” that is their problem! Besides the ambiguity of the words “bi-weekly” or “bi-monthly,” I think that they are esthetically ugly and artificial words that detract from the English language. Try “twice weekly,” if “fortnightly” doesn’t do it for you. While biweekly is one of the most commonly confused words with the bi- prefix, it’s not the only one. This means that paychecks will be issued once every two weeks, usually on the same day. There are 52 weeks in a calendar year, meaning that people paid on a biweekly basis receive 26 paychecks per year.
Other Ways to Say Biweekly
Now a biweekly with a circulation of 50,000, the New Republic could use an infusion of cash. If you have an annual salary of $1 million, your biweekly paycheck will be about $38,000. Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. An Ben Watson asked could he have a copy to put in the Biweekly. They worked it all up from the boiler-plate war news in the Biweekly and Lukes school geography.
Essentially, “bi-weekly” means happening every two weeks or twice a week. But if you want to diversify your vocabulary or avoid potential misunderstandings, there are alternative phrases you can use. However, my colleagues talk about having meetings biweekly. This causes a lot of confusion, since it can mean either once every two weeks or twice a week. Related words are words that are directly connected to each other through their meaning, even if they are not synonyms or antonyms.
If you’re chatting with friends or sending a casual email, “twice a week” or “every other week” would suffice. We have two words for events occurring in periods of years – biannual meaning twice a year, and biennial meaning once every two years. Another synonym for biweekly is semiweekly, which means “twice a week.” The prefix semi- means half or partially. For maximum clarity, writing “every 2 weeks” or “twice a week” is advisable (regardless of correctness or incorrectness of “biweekly” in either sense).
Great Big List of Beautiful and Useless Words, Vol. 3
They sound professional and are less likely to cause confusion. Technically, semiweekly is the term that you’re looking for. But if you’re trying to avoid ambiguity, then go with something like “twice a week” like Hugo suggested.
These were bi-weekly, with various possibilities of casual arrivals besides. They worked it all up from the boiler-plate war news in the Bi-weekly and Luke’s school geography. Robert https://accounting-services.net/ J. Samuelson has written a bi-weekly column for Newsweek since 1984. For a person making $50,000, that cut meant an extra $1,000 in income, or about $40 for every bi-weekly paycheck.
