leap year
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Legal, Financial, Acronyms, Wikipedia.
leap year:
see calendarcalendar[Lat., from Kalends], system of reckoning time for the practical purpose of recording past events and calculating dates for future plans. The calendar is based on noting ordinary and easily observable natural events, the cycle of the sun through the seasons with equinox
..... Click the link for more information. .
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia™ Copyright © 2013, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/
leap year
A year that contains one more day than the usual calendar year so that the average length of the year is brought closer to the tropical year of 365.2422 days or to the lunar year. In the Julian calendar a leap year of 366 days occurred once every four years when the year was divisible by four. In the Gregorian calendar this rule was modified so that century years are leap years only when they are divisible by 400. The additional day is now added at the end of February (Feb. 29).Collins Dictionary of Astronomy © Market House Books Ltd, 2006
leap year
[′lēp ‚yir] (astronomy)
A year with 366, and not 365, days.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
leap year
a calendar year of 366 days, February 29 (leap day) being the additional day, that occurs every four years (those whose number is divisible by four) except for century years whose number is not divisible by 400. It offsets the difference between the length of the solar year (365.2422 days) and the calendar year of 365 days
Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005