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Glite Dictionary
lunar year

lunar year

1 5.5
A year of 12 moon months that lasts about 354 days
  • noun
  • /ˈluːnər jɪr/
  • Specialized
translation icon : año lunar
  • Re your comment about Noah's age and lunar years: I think you've been misled by a comment higher up on the page.

Examples

  • I'm not sure what to think about whether people can face legal consequences for saying 'Muhammad was a pedophile' or 'Muhammad committed an act of child molestation,' although it seems there are writings of Hadith that say he consummated his marriage with a girl when she was around 9 lunar years old.

    Blog text (25)

  • "Patriot's" error comes about because of a confusion between a lunar month and a lunar year.

    Blog text (3)

  • This pig has been slaughtered between November and December in the lunar year of the previous year.

    Academic text (2018)

  • If any of us leave, our lifespan shortens to only one lunar year.

    Lycan Colony (2006)

  • If Noah was 600 true lunar years old when he launched the ark, that would make him only 581 modern years old, still far above the 50 years referenced by "All American Patriot."

    Blog text (3)

  • The New Year festival, also known as the Spring Festival, marks the end of one lunar year and the beginning of a new one.

  • In the last lunar year, the Year of the Rat, 17-year-old Wang Li ran away from home in search of work and adventure.

  • The Jews reconcile their lunar year with the 365-day solar year by periodically adding a 13-month leap year to their calendar.

Surface Forms

lunar year singular
lunar years plural

Morphology

lunar + year

The phrase is a straightforward adjective+noun composition: knowing 'lunar' (relating to the moon) and 'year' lets a learner infer it denotes a year defined by the moon or moon cycles. This compositional pattern is cross-linguistically common (e.g. Spanish año lunar, French année lunaire), so the core meaning is immediately predictable to a B1 learner even if precise length (≈354 days) is extra factual detail.

Etymology

The noun lunar year comes from counting a year by the moon: people used 12 months marked by the full moons. That's why a lunar year is about 354 days and is shorter than a 'solar' year, so some calendars and festivals move through the seasons.