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Quarters divide years by four. I am looking for the terms dividing years by 2, 3 and 6.

Does there exists terms to express other parts of the years like quarters?

hhh
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  • Quarter is a generic term that means "divide in to four parts". It's not year specific, so use the same generic terms for the other fractions. – Matt E. Эллен Sep 15 '17 at 12:04
  • @MattE.Эллен I cannot understand. Can I refer to half of year by Q1 and the second half of year by Q2? How does the reader know to which part of the year I mean? – hhh Sep 15 '17 at 12:10
  • Downvoters would be recommended to be more constructive and leave a comment for improvement. – hhh Sep 15 '17 at 12:10
  • Why would you refer to halves as quarters? – Matt E. Эллен Sep 15 '17 at 12:10
  • @MattE.Эллен I thought you meant this by [quarter]'s not year specific, so use the same generic terms for the other fractions where quarter is the generic term? – hhh Sep 15 '17 at 12:11
  • No, I mean that you can say "this is the first quarter of my apple" or "this is the second quarter of my pie". It's not specific to years. So you can use the generic term for each fraction. – Matt E. Эллен Sep 15 '17 at 12:12
  • @MattE.Эллен I want to describe year by halves, trichotomy, quarters, five parts, six parts and so forth -- there exist no english term for each specific part? – hhh Sep 15 '17 at 12:15
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    Half, third, fifth, etc. – Matt E. Эллен Sep 15 '17 at 12:15
  • Q1 means first quarter. It is often used in business, when the year is divided into four parts for bookkeeping. The other quarters are Q2, Q3, and Q4. I have not seen H1 for first half, nor T1 for first third. – GEdgar Sep 15 '17 at 12:32
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    @GEdgar I have seen H1/H2 - rarely But you'd want to explain them at first use in each document until they became established in context – Chris H Sep 15 '17 at 18:35
  • Related question for 1/6 year or 2 months: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/311736/what-do-you-call-two-consecutive-months-a-sixth-of-a-year – Crissov Jan 12 '18 at 16:48

2 Answers2

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Yes, a quarter, or trimester is a period of 3 months (a quarter year).

Quarter: one fourth of a calendar or fiscal year: The bank sends out a statement each quarter.(http://www.dictionary.com/browse/quarter)

Trimester: a period of three or about three months; especially :any of three periods of approximately three months each into which a human pregnancy is divided https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trimester

A semester is a period of six months (half a year).

Semester :a period of six months https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/semester

A bimester is a sixth of a year (two months).

Bimester :a period of two months

A tertile or quadrimester is four months (a third of a year).

Quadrimester: A period of four months http://www.definition-of.com/quadrimester

Tertile: 1. (statistics) Either of the two points that divide an ordered distribution into three parts, each containing a third of the population. 2. (statistics) Any one of the three groups so divided. The first tertile results include January through April's revenues. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tertile

ArchContrarian
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  • @hhh: to address the comment you added to your question- there are no other common terms in English for fractions of a year, like 1/5 year, 1/8 year, etc – ArchContrarian Sep 15 '17 at 12:21
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    The above aren't all commonly used, either. Google Ngrams. – Edwin Ashworth Sep 15 '17 at 13:57
  • @EdwinAshworth ... true, scratch 'other' in my last comment :) +1 – ArchContrarian Sep 15 '17 at 15:32
  • @ArchContrarian the others divide the year into whole months (thus aren't really fractions if you think of the number of days). Fifths and eighths wouldn't, and would be of very limited use – Chris H Sep 15 '17 at 18:37
  • @ChrisH ... that's true, but the question asks for words like 'quarter'. A quarter is invariably a period of three calendar months - not 1/4 of the days in the year. (Most years have a number of days not divisible by 4, anyway). Also, a 'fraction' can mean any part or subset, not just a precise arithmetical fraction. – ArchContrarian Sep 17 '17 at 21:22
  • @ArchContrarian fraction carries the meaning of part. Quarter can too, especially as areas of cities, but 3 months is a quarter of the months in a year. Half can be very imprecise but still means division into two. Generally other fractions have the same meaning in everyday use as their mathematical meaning, with a margin of error. Eighth could just about mean a period of 6 weeks, but you'd have some left at the end of the year. I just can't see it working (or fifth, with ten weeks) – Chris H Sep 18 '17 at 05:50
  • @ChrisH ... I see what you're getting at now. You're correct. – ArchContrarian Sep 19 '17 at 11:20
  • @ArchContrarian Fiscal and statistical quarters can also be defined as normally 91 days or 13 weeks and exceptionally 92 days or 14 weeks (98 days), cf. Apple's 2012Q4 reporting fiasco. Also, if you'd accept tertile for 4 months or 1/3 year, quartile for 3 months or 1/4 year and sextile for 2 months or 1/6 year would be the systematic consequence. There was a measure of beverage casks called a tertian which is 1/3 tun. – Crissov Jan 12 '18 at 16:54
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In American business usage, particularly in financial reports, the year is divided into either months or quarters. No other division is common enough to have been given a name except for half. "That merger is scheduled to close in the first half."

"Semester" and "trimester" are primarily, perhaps exclusively, academic terms and refer to divisions of a "school year," which is not generally 365 days. I cannot remember hearing those terms ever used in a commercial or financial context.

It is of course possible to find special terms, but they are not in frequent use. What is usually done is to specify a fraction of a year or a number of days, weeks, or months. One might say "a third of a year" or "four months." Fractions using sixths or twelfths are rare. Most would say "seven months" rather than "seven twelfths of a year."

Jeff Morrow
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  • "Semester" and "trimester" are primarily, perhaps exclusively, academic terms Well, "trimester" is also used for pregnancies. – GEdgar Sep 15 '17 at 21:15
  • @ GEdgar. True but perhaps confusing with references to divisions of the solar year. "Trimester" in the obstetrical sense stands for one third of the duration of a normal human pregnancy, which is about three months, which is a quarter of a year. I should have said that "trimester" is primarily used in a certain restricted contexts to represent a third of a period, but it is seldom if ever used to designate a third of a solar year. Nevertheless, I overstated my case. – Jeff Morrow Sep 16 '17 at 00:46