Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🌱 A two-year plant 📅 Every two years 🌱 Two-year life cycle
biennial

biennial

7.0
Living for two years and flowering in the second year
  • adjective
  • /baɪˈɛn.i.əl/
  • Specialized
translation icon : bienal
  • Beets are biennial plants that produce flowers and seeds in their second year.
  • biennial plant

Examples

  • They sparred on a number of subjects, including the biennial state budget passed in 2009 while Hassan was Senate majority leader.

    Blog text (28)

  • Perennials come back every year and biennials live for two years.

  • Leaves from biennial plants should, when possible, be picked in their second years.

  • If your soil is extremely hard, plant biennial sweet clover and let it grow for two seasons.

Synonyms

biyearly
vsbiennial
5.8

Happening once every two years

describes a plant life cycle lasting two years with flowering in the second year

Antonyms

perennial
20 5.1

Living for several years and flowering each year

annual
  • Specialized
11 2.7

For plants, living for only one year before dying

How Long-Lived

perennial
20 5.1
biennial
  • Specialized
7.0
annual
  • Specialized
11 2.7

Surface Forms

biennial positive

Morphology

biennial = annual (transparent) = bi + ennial

The adjectival sense for plants is formed by prefixing 'bi-' to the year-related base, giving the straightforward 'two-year' sense applied to life cycles.

Etymology

Biennial comes from the parts bi- 'two' and annus 'year', the same root as annual, so for plants it means 'lasting two years'. A biennial plant typically grows leaves in the first year and flowers in the second year.