Biannual vs Semiannual: What's the Difference?

Biannual vs Semiannual: What’s the Difference?

Also, a biennial plant is one that takes two years to grow from its planting to its death. Biennial comes from the Latin biennium, which means a two year period.

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A semiannual financial report is a company’s unaudited financial report for the previous six months. If a company’s fiscal year runs from January to December, the semiannual report would cover the company’s financials from January through June. This would provide investors with insight into how the company has performed in the first half of the year and provide an indicator of how it may perform for the remainder of the year. Company ABC has performed well in the last five years, continuously making a profit and growing earnings.

The company decides it will start paying its shareholders dividends to distribute a portion of the earnings. ABC’s management decides it will distribute a dividend of $0.50 for every share. Semiannual is biannual vs semiannual simply a word that denotes an occurrence twice a year.

Often, you will find competitions, contests, special events, or performances using “bi-annual” rather than semi-annual. Biannual, biennial, and semiannual are adjectives that describe the frequency at which events occur. To this end, best practice is to write around the confusion introduced by these terms. Use semiannual to refer to things which happen twice a year.

A third adjective, biennial, describes something that occurs every other year.
Financial statements or reports are frequently published on a quarterly (four times per year) basis.
These words are so similar that it’s easy to confuse them in your writing.
The dividends will be distributed in June and in December.

For example, a company could have company parties semiannually, a couple could celebrate their marriage semiannually, and a family could go on vacation semiannually. Although you can often use either semi-annual or bi-annual, a good trick for remembering their differences is to look at the meanings of each prefix. You should use the term “bi-annual” to refer to an event that occurs every other year.

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The term can be confused with other similar-sounding terms, such as biennial, which means an event occurring every two years. It’s important to understand the differences to ensure you are understanding the financial impact of financial products, such as bonds and dividends. For example, a semiannual event could happen in January and July or June and December.

You have been invited to a biannual event, but then later you see it referred to as a semiannual event. Explore the meanings of biannual and semiannual and when to use both terms. The word biennial is usually used to mean “occurring every two years,” but its similarity to biannual makes a misunderstanding possible. An example of semiannual in finance would be a bond that pays the bondholder interest semiannually. This means the bond would make an interest payment twice a year, usually six months apart.

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Semiannual is important to understand when purchasing bonds. A bond is usually described in the yield that it pays the bondholder. It is important to know if this 5% is paid annually or semiannually to understand the payment you would receive as the bondholder.

Many resources on grammar and writing concede that these terms are so similar that you can use them interchangeably. However, there are some subtle differences between the context and implications of the words. Biannual and semiannual are often used synonymously, meaning the same definition is applied to both. Since semi- means half or part, it will be easy to remember that you only need to wait part of a year before something semiannual happens again.

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Since the prefix semi- refers to half or part or something, you can use it to remind yourself that something that is semiannual only goes part of a year before happening again. Biannual is an adjective that specifies the frequency of occurrence. Explore similar terms that are often used synonymously but have subtly different meanings, such as transparent, translucent and opaque. Then check out words that look similar and have the same meaning but are used slightly differently, like preventive and preventative. A third adjective, biennial, describes something that occurs every other year.

Use “semi-annual” if an event occurs precisely six months apart during the year. The meanings of these words are so identical that many questions if there’s a difference between semi-annual vs. bi-annual. Semi-annual vs. bi-annual have nearly identical meanings that it can be head-scratching to know which one to use. In this article, we’ll teach you the differences between these two confusing terms and the best choice when describing something that happens twice a year.