off year
4
5.1
- noun
- Literature
:
año sin elecciones
- In an off year, many voters tend to stay home instead of going to the polls.
- off year election
Examples
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40% is a huge turnout for an off-year election with no major candidate elections involved.
Blog text (28) -
Why would anyone who loves democracy not want to see a large turnout for an off-year election?
Blog text (28) -
I signed up for emails from the League of Women Voters so I would know when off-year bond elections were happening.
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And we have a good chance of passing it in battleground states in the next off-year election.
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Parties that hold the White House almost invariably lose seats in Congress during off-year elections.
Academic text (2003) -
So this election had a high voter turnout for an off-year election.
Blog text (28) -
The off-year elections show far lower turnout; then the presidential year approaches, and suddenly the party is contacting us again.
Blog text (27) -
His historically high approval ratings for a president were translated also into historic wins for the Republican Party in the off-year election of 2002.
Academic text (2003) -
The apathy of a hell of a lot of Texas voters in off-year elections is what got us into this mess in our state, and it is going to take a lot of work to fix it.
Blog text (32) -
No one ever said that same-day registration would ensure that there would be a stellar turnout in an off-year election.
Blog text (28)
Synonyms
A time when no public vote for office happens
How Electoral
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense of a year being 'not normal' or lacking something important is directly suggested by combining 'off' (not normal/absent) with 'year', and parallels constructions like 'off day' or 'off season', so a learner can get a general gist. However, the specific political nuance — that it denotes a year without major elections — is a domain-specific extension that a B1 learner who only knows the constituent words may not reliably infer without prior exposure.
Etymology
Off year comes from the idea of a year being off from big national elections, like an 'off-season' with less public activity and interest. So it means 'no major elections' and often 'fewer people vote'.