Other forms: annuals
Annual means happening once every year. An annual meeting, annual leave, the annual report.
The standard collocations are worth learning as units: annual general meeting, annual leave, annual income, annual review. In gardening, an annual is a plant that lives one year and dies, against a perennial. As a noun, an annual is also a book published once a year, which is a British children's tradition. Note annually, and biannual, which confusingly means twice a year while biennial means every two years.
1adjectiveannualHappening once every year.
“The annual music festival takes place every August in the park.”
2nounplantA plant that lives for one year.
“Everything in that bed is an annual and has to be replanted.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
annual is a yearly occurrence.
Latin annualis comes from annus, a year — the same root as anniversary, annuity and per annum. Annals, meaning year-by-year records, is the same word, which is why history written that way has that name.
Latin
annuālem
English, today
annual
Built from
First attested around 1382, borrowed from Latin annuālem, annuālis, related to Latin annālis, adjective form of annus (“year”). Used to categorize plants since 1710.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA