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anniversary

noun

Simple meaning

A day that is an exact number of years since a given significant event occurred.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

anuhvurseree

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ænəˈvɝsɚi

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. A day that is an exact number of years (to the day) since a given significant event occurred. Often preceded by an ordinal number indicating the number of years.

  2. especially

    Such a day that commemorates a wedding.

  3. loosely

    The date on which an event occurred in some previous year (or the celebration of it)

  4. loosely

    A day subsequent in time to a given event by some significant period other than a year (especially as prefixed by the amount of time in question).

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B1 · Intermediate
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

This meaning: A day that is an exact number of years (to the day) since a given significant event occurred. Often preceded by an ordinal number indicating the number of years.

Used this way, anniversary is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It suits considered writing and prepared speech.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Serious and weighty
Usage feel
Formal and precise

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use anniversary

  • “They celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary with a special dinner.”noun

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

wedding anniversaryfirst anniversaryfifth anniversaryfiftieth anniversarytenth anniversaryhundredth anniversarysecond anniversarytwentieth anniversary

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

Related Words

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.