YEAR, a unit of time, marked by the revolution of the earth in its orbit. The year is either astronomical or civil. The former is determined by astronomical observation, and is of different lengths, according to the point of the heavens to which the revolution is referred. When the earth's motion is referred to a fixed point in the heavens, as a fixed star, the time of revolution is the time which elapses from the moment when the star, the sun, and the earth are in a straight line, till they again occupy the same position; this is called a sidereal year. If the revolution is referred to one of the equinoctial points, the year is somewhat shorter than the sidereal year, on ac count of the precession of the equinoxes, that is, the retrogression of the equinoc tial points along the ecliptic. This is called the equinoctial, tropical, or solar year. The length of the sidereal year is 365.2563612 mean solar days, or 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes, 9.6 seconds. The length of the solar or equinoctial year is 365.2422414 mean solar days, or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 49.7 sec onds. The difference between these two years is 19 minutes 19.2 seconds mean solar time, that being the time re quired for the earth to advance in its orbit a distance of 50.1" of arc. The civil year is the year of the calendar. It con tains a whole number of days, beginning always at midnight of some day. Ac cording to the present system, or accord ing to the Gregorian calendar, every year the number of which is not divisible by 4, also every year which is divisible by 100, and not by 400, is a common year, and contains 365 days. All other years
are called leap years, and contain 366. The ecclesiastical year is from Advent to Advent. A lunar year is a period consisting of 12 lunar months. The as tronomical lunar year consists of 12 lunar synodical months, or 354 days, 8 hours, 48 minutes, 36 seconds. The com mon lunar year consists of 12 lunar months or 354 days. The Embolismic or Intercalary lunar year, consists of 13 lunar civil months, and contains 384 days. Also the period in which any planet completes a revolution; as, the year of Jupiter or of Saturn.
Year and a day, in law, the lapse of a year and one day added to it; a period which determines a right or works pre scription in many cases. Year day and waste, in law, part of the sovereign's prerogative in England, whereby he was entitled to the profits for a year and a day of the tenements of persons at tainted by petty treason or felony, to gether with the right of wasting the said tenements; afterward restoring it to the lord of the fee. It was abolished by the Felony Act, 1870. Year of grace, any year of the Christian era. Year to year tenancy, in law, a tenancy taken at first for a year, but which continues for a second year unless one of the parties on the expiration of the first six months intimates to the other his intention not to renew it. The same rule will obtain year after year till the six months notice of non-renewal is given.