# Names for leap years and their roots **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 29, 2012, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-leap-years-and-their-roots/614350 "2012-02-29T15:47:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-leap-years-and-their-roots/614350/1 "2012-02-29T15:47:59Z")
OK, so in English years with 366 days apparently are jumpy, but I imagine that’s not what the name is supposed to mean. I have a couple of questions: 1. How do you say “leap year” in different languages? 2. Where does the name come from? 3. Do “leap days” have a name other than ‘February 29’ (well, its equivalent) in those same languages? I’ll start. In Spanish, _año bisiesto_, from Latin _bisextus_, “double-sixed”, and no. In Catalan, _any bixest_ or _any de traspàs_, “double-sixed” or “transfer year” (the word is the same as for selling a store or business; no idea why), and no. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-leap-years-and-their-roots/614350/2 "2012-02-29T16:06:47Z")
[etymonline.com](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=leap&searchmode=none) > [@](#): > > leap year > late 14c., from leap (v.) + year. So called from its causing fixed festival days, which normally advance one weekday per year, to “leap” ahead one day in the week. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-leap-years-and-their-roots/614350/3 "2012-02-29T16:16:45Z")
In English the term “bissextile year” is also used, although rarely. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-leap-years-and-their-roots/614350/4 "2012-02-29T16:25:59Z")
[Bissextile](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=bissextile&allowed_in_frame=0). Romans named [three days](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_calendar) of the month, and one of them was “calends.” ---
**Author:** ![Lukeinva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lukeinva/32/17872_2.png) [@Lukeinva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lukeinva)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-leap-years-and-their-roots/614350/5 "2012-02-29T16:38:48Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > OK, so in English years with 366 days apparently are jumpy, but I imagine that’s not what the name is supposed to mean. I have a couple of questions: > > 1. How do you say “leap year” in different languages? > > 2. Where does the name come from? > > 3. Do “leap days” have a name other than ‘February 29’ (well, its equivalent) in those same languages? > I’ll start. > > In Spanish, > _año bisiesto_, from Latin _bisextus_, “double-sixed”, and no. > > In Catalan, > _any bixest_ or _any de traspàs_, “double-sixed” or “transfer year” (the word is the same as for selling a store or business; no idea why), and no. Nice to read Catalan on this board 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-leap-years-and-their-roots/614350/6 "2012-02-29T17:02:24Z")
A Jewish Leap Year, in which a thirteenth month is added to the calendar, is called “Shana M’Uberes” which literally means “pregnant (as in, extended like a pregnant woman’s belly) year”. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-leap-years-and-their-roots/614350/7 "2012-02-29T17:24:40Z")
In Hungarian, it’s _szökõév_, which literally translates to “leap year.” According to the calendars for name days, the extraday is called _szökõnap_ (“leap day”), but is marked on Feb. 24. Apparently, this is because of an old Roman custom. In Polish, it’s _rok przestępny_. A leap day would be _dzień przestępny_. I’m not entirely sure of the definition of _przestępny_. I’m only familiar with that word in that particular phrase. ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-leap-years-and-their-roots/614350/8 "2012-02-29T23:48:03Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > In Hungarian, it’s _szökõév_, which literally translates to “leap year.” According to the calendars for name days, the extraday is called _szökõnap_ (“leap day”), but is marked on Feb. 24. Apparently, this is because of an old Roman custom. This was the Roman custom, and the origin of the word “bisextile”. The Romans wrote dates by counting backwards from specific, fixed dates in the month. The first of each month was known as the Kalends, so March 1st = _Kal. Mar._ = “the kalends of March”. In normal years Feb. 24 is _a. d. VI Kal. Mar._ - “the sixth day before March 1st” (counting both end dates). But in leap years it would actually be the seventh–if Julius Caesar hadn’t decided that the leap day would be _a. d. bis. VI Kal. Mar._ - “the second-sixth day before March 1st” (remember, the counting was done backward from the target Kalends, so it’s technically correct to have the “second sixth” occur before the “first sixth”). ---
**Author:** ![FatBaldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecd19e/32.png) [@FatBaldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FatBaldGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-leap-years-and-their-roots/614350/9 "2012-03-01T15:29:24Z")
Slight hijack, but what is with the Romans and their strange counting schemes? Roman numerals work the same way, with letters added to the left of another letter to indicate subtraction and to the right to indicate addition. I can’t even begin to wrap my head around how they were able to do even simple mathematical tasks like adding a column of numbers. Do we have any record of who came up with this method of notation, and if there are any advantages over the system we use today of having a “ones” column, a “tens” column, etc.? ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-leap-years-and-their-roots/614350/10 "2012-03-01T16:56:37Z")
Norwegian for leap years is skuddår It means insert year, but to modern Norwegians is often thought to mean shot year. The 29th is skuddag, insert day. ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-leap-years-and-their-roots/614350/11 "2012-03-01T20:03:50Z")
> [@FatBaldGuy](#): > > Slight hijack, but what is with the Romans and their strange counting schemes? Roman numerals work the same way, with letters added to the left of another letter to indicate subtraction and to the right to indicate addition. I can’t even begin to wrap my head around how they were able to do even simple mathematical tasks like adding a column of numbers. > > Do we have any record of who came up with this method of notation, and if there are any advantages over the system we use today of having a “ones” column, a “tens” column, etc.? Roman numerals were based on tally marks that were originally notched into a stick; these are the “I”'s. When a count got to a multiple of 5, the counter made a double notch; this is where the “V” comes from. At multiples of 10 the counter would make a cross-cut “X” So a stick with 12 tally marks would look like this: I I I I V I I I I X I I. The tallies are a relic of the running total, but it’s obvious that once the final total is reached most of the earlier marks can be omitted: the XII ending of the marks is all that’s required for “12” in the example. This principle was extended to include tallies that were “just short” of a V or X notch: If a stick read I I I I V I I I I, a “virtual” X was used to show the stick was “one short of X” = IX. This seems odd and cumbersome to us only because we are used to writing out math problems for calculation. The Romans by contrast performed similar calculations with an [abacus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_abacus), which is much more conducive to the Roman numeral system. ---
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-leap-years-and-their-roots/614350/12 "2012-03-01T20:19:36Z")
One final point on the bisextile (before this thread is resurrected 4 years from now). The reason Caesar chose to double February 24th specifically in the Roman calendar is that’s the point in the older calendar where the priests would add extra months to re-adjust their lunar-based calendar with the seasons of the year. The reason the priests put the extra month there was related to the Roman festival Terminalia, held (typically) on February 23rd. Terminus was the god who protected boundary markers (an important job in an agricultural society; tampering with boundary markers is an easy way to steal a few extra acres of land, so it’s handy to have a superstitious fear to discourage it). It’s not hard to see his annual festival associated with a more general “boundary” of the solar year. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-leap-years-and-their-roots/614350/13 "2012-03-02T07:33:35Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > In Hungarian, it’s _szökõév_, which literally translates to “leap year.” According to the calendars for name days, the extraday is called _szökõnap_ (“leap day”), but is marked on Feb. 24. Apparently, this is because of an old Roman custom. Normally your Hungarian is very good (even better than mine) but it looks like today some Portuguese practical joker replaced your ő key with õ. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-leap-years-and-their-roots/614350/14 "2012-03-02T07:45:00Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > Normally your Hungarian is very good (even better than mine) but it looks like today some Portuguese practical joker replaced your ő key with õ. 😃 Ack! I didn’t even notice that. I just pressed down down the o key until I got my little character map and selected what I thought looked like the long umlaut. On my screen, it’s hard to tell that it’s a tilde. That said, I have seen Hungarians use that character when the long umlaut is not available. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-leap-years-and-their-roots/614350/15 "2012-03-02T14:15:05Z")
In German: _Schaltjahr_ lit. shift year Feb. 29th: _Schalttag_ lit. shift day. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-leap-years-and-their-roots/614350/16 "2012-03-02T14:46:15Z")
Islam, oddly enough refuses the idea of a leap year. The Hejra Calendar is moon-based and so drifts around the seasons with wild abandon. In the Old Days, they used ad intracalendarial (intercalendarial?) days and even months, but Mohammed prohibited the practice. When I arrived here, Ramadan was easy as it fell in December. Now it is right in August. No fun at all.