leap day
3
2.3
- noun
- /lip deɪ/
:
día bisiesto
- Moreover, every 400 years, a year ending in "00" receives a leap day.
- leap day in a leap year
Examples
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I'm going to propose to my boyfriend on leap day.
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I'm going to Dublin to propose to my boyfriend on the 29th, leap day.
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So, on this leap day, what are you facing that you are afraid of?
Blog text (27) -
We did, and we have leap days every four years to correct for the error that was introduced.
Blog text (11) -
The Julian calendar, with its leap day every four years, helped correct this problem to some extent, but not completely.
Blog text (10) -
Today is February 29, which means it is leap day this year.
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Many people believe that leap day is the best time to propose marriage.
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We celebrated leap day with a party since it only comes once every four years.
Synonyms
1
3.5
An extra day in February that appears every four years
An extra day, February 29th, that people add to the calendar in a leap year
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun 'day' is transparent, and 'leap' here denotes an added or extra instance rather than the literal sense of jumping. A B1 learner who knows both words could plausibly infer 'an extra calendar day', but the calendrical sense of 'leap' is somewhat lexicalized and not fully predictable across languages, so the expression is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Leap day gets its name from the idea of leap, a jump, and day. Because a year is a little longer than 365 days, we add one 'extra' day every four years so the dates jump forward, and that added day is the leap day, February 29.