In a newsgroup I frequent, someone asked for a word to describe an event that happens 3 times a year. Here is the entire discussion to date, I would be very interested to know what you all think. Almost all the people who post to this newsgroup are tertiary-educated professionals, with an unusually high number of engineers (divers flavours), along with lawyers, and a few political staffers.
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Okay, I'll ask all the people here. I know that semi-annual
will describe an event that takes place twice a year. Tri-annual or
triennial would be every three years. So is there a word for three times a year. I've been unable to find one in the dictionary or any place else.
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how about terti-annual?
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What about something to the effect of quadrimonthly? Express it in terms
of every four months instead of 3 times a year?
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As you probably know, "biweekly" can mean either twice a week or every
two weeks. If you're going to have to make up a word anyway, I'd go with
tri-annual and live with the ambiguity. It seems to me more logical that a
reader would assume tri-annual to mean three times a year and not once every
three years.
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Yeah, trimester applies to both three academic periods in the academic
year, as well as to thirds of gestation. I doubt anybody but a book
author could make a living publishing anything once every three years...
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Trimesterly was the suggestion on another list.
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I think it's better to avoid the problem and say 'three times a year' or
'thrice yearly'.
Look at the problem with 'biannual' (twice a year) and 'biennial' (once
every two years)...
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Oh yeah, I can see someone saying "thrice" right now!
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Hey, what's wrong with thrice? I hear it at least twice a
fortnight.
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triannual (adj.) tri·an·nu·al
1. done, occurring, issued, etc., three times a year.
2. triennial.
3. a triannual publication, contest, etc.
4. triennial.

The Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary Copyright © 2001 by Random
House Inc. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

See: http://www.allwords.com/
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Well, even though "triannual" appears to NOT be a word in any dictionary I
have looked... it should be!
So, start using it! I'm gonna.
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I was a little bemused, as I simply thought to myself that since biannual means twice a year, triannual would mean thrice (namaste, shanks) a year. Did I oversimplify it?