year-by-year
|year-by-year|
🇺🇸
/ˈjɪr.baɪˈjɪr/
🇬🇧
/ˈjɪə.baɪˈjɪə/
each year; year after year
Etymology
'year-by-year' originates from English, specifically the words 'year' and 'by', where 'year' ultimately comes from Old English 'ġēar' meaning 'a year, season' and 'by' comes from Old English 'bi' meaning 'by, near, during'.
'year' was Old English 'ġēar' and passed through Middle English to become modern 'year'; 'by' was Old English 'bi' and remained as 'by'. The phrase 'year by year' developed as a periphrastic expression and later formed the hyphenated compound 'year-by-year' in modern usage.
Initially it referred literally to years placed one after another ('one year by another'), but over time it came to mean 'each year' or 'year after year' and also developed use as a compound adjective meaning 'organized or compared on a per-year basis'.
Meanings by Part of Speech
Adjective 1
describing something organized, reported, or compared on a per-year basis (often hyphenated before a noun: a year-by-year comparison).
They prepared a year-by-year comparison of the budgets.
Synonyms
Adverb 1
from one year to the next; each year; year after year (indicating something that happens annually or progressively over successive years).
The population grew year by year.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Idioms
Last updated: 2025/09/20 17:26