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Is there an adjective that means "every other day"? I found "bidaily" but it seems to mean "twice a day", not "every second day" (not even both as "biweekly" does).

I'd need this word to very concisely describe a questionnaire by its issuing frequency.

RegDwigнt
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Christian
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    What’s wrong with “every other day”? – tchrist Feb 23 '13 at 20:40
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    Or perhaps "on alternate days"? – Oliver Mason Feb 23 '13 at 20:45
  • @tchrist I'd very much prefer a one-word solution. And "every-other-day" isn't much help. "The every-other-day questionnaire" ... it feels really cumbersome. And it doesn't fit in a small table cell :/ – Christian Feb 23 '13 at 21:48
  • @Christian in that case I'd probably go for alternating questionnaire, but that might also not fit 100% in your context. If you need a short phrase, you will have to cut some corners somewhere. – Oliver Mason Feb 23 '13 at 22:17
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    http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/22318/a-word-for-every-two-days

    It seems your choices include bidiurnal or 'QOD', which is used in medical prescriptions.

     – JDF Apr 28 '16 at 11:38
  • Thanks! I would argue that this should be an answer but then again, the whole question seems to be a duplicate so it should be marked accordingly. – Christian Apr 29 '16 at 11:20

2 Answers2

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There is no one word. The best you can do is "alternate day." An alternate day questionnaire is a questionnaire that appears every other day.

John M. Landsberg
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There would be two words: semidaily and bidaily. If you think one of them means twice a day, then you should think the other means every other day.

Matt E. Эллен
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GEdgar
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  • I don't think anything. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bidaily That word is already hard to find in dictionaries. "Semidaily" is almost nonexistent outside Urban Dictionary. You don't seem very sure yourself if I might say so. – Christian Feb 23 '13 at 21:52
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    When you ask for nonexistent words, you may get strange answers. – GEdgar Feb 24 '13 at 01:07
  • Oh, I thought I might get the answer "Sorry, there is no such word in the English language" which is not at all strange. If you read my question carefully, you might notice that I asked in fact for the very existence of such a word. I got downvoted nonetheless which I in turn find strange. – Christian Feb 24 '13 at 13:44
  • Semi- is half, so semi-daily means on the half-days. The OED says it means twice a day, which is the same thing. – tchrist Mar 06 '13 at 12:24
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    @tchrist Isn't that the whole "biannually" debate again? Yes, semiannually seems to mean "twice a year" for almost everyone. But biannually maddeningly means the same thing to many, while it means "every other year" for others. – Christian Mar 23 '13 at 12:03
  • I believe that it might take many years before the use of semi and bi to be used for "every other x" versus "twice Per x" is clear enough to be certain that everyone understands when it's not clear from context. That does not stop people from using them. In many situations it is quite clear from context – Stenemo Jul 08 '20 at 14:12