On my local neighborhood website, someone asked for recommendations for someone to clean their house on a ‘biweekly’ schedule.
That is a word that I avoid using because it has never been clear to me whether the user means once every two weeks or twice a week. I looked up Merriam-Webster’s dictionary and it gives both definitions. The Cambridge dictionary says that it means every two weeks in American English and “every two weeks or twice a week” for just English, which is not much help.
Clearly people who use it think it means only one or the other and have never encountered it being used with the alternative meaning. The less common word ‘fortnightly’ clearly means every two weeks and so perhaps that should be used when we want to say that and reserve ‘biweekly’ for twice a week.
But perhaps the best option is to simply say ‘twice a week’ or ‘once every two weeks’ and avoid any confusion.
Depends.
If the concept is only used once, it’s surely easier to say one of those circumlocutory phrases, but if it’s used multiply, a single term that’s been initially defined (as is done with acronyms) is easier to use.
(One word vs. 3 or 4, multiply, adds up)
Mano,
I always think of 1976 when we—Americans—celebrated our Bicentennial.
Semiweekly means twice a week, biweekly means fortnightly or every two weeks.
Semimonthly, fortnightly and biweekly are equivalents, at least in American.
Happy new year,
Jeff
You could just say every other sennight.
I’m on board with greater use of semi-weekly and fortnightly.
Sesquiseptemial is useful for things that happen about 3 x / month.
Always remember that people blew themselves up because of the word “inflammable”
As a Canadian, by-weekly means twice a week.