Join us for a live webinar all about how BambooHR seamlessly supports your hourly payroll process. Biweekly means twice a week or once every other week, though it’s more commonly used to refer to the latter. Although not as commonly used, biweekly may also refer to a magazine or newspaper that publishes once every two weeks. Hyphens are not used after the prefix bi- unless the root word starts with the letter I. Before making any decision about how often you pay employees, check your state’s payday requirements from the DOL as some states require more frequent pay intervals. Add biweekly to one of your lists below, or create a new one.
- Although this is an acceptable synonym for biweekly, it’s not a common term for American English speakers.
- A semiweekly meeting, on the other hand, occurs twice a week.
- Since every calendar year has 52 weeks, this results in a total of 26 paychecks per year.
- In both cases, it’s commonly understood to mean twice monthly or once every other week, usually taking place on the same day of the week.
- Biweekly can mean twice a week or once every two weeks, but most people use it to refer to the latter.
Biweekly pay describes when employees are paid every other week on a specific day of the week. For example, if you want to establish a biweekly pay schedule, you might choose to pay your employees every other Friday. Since every calendar year has 52 weeks, this results in a total of 26 paychecks per year. To calculate biweekly pay for an hourly employee, multiply the number of hours worked in a two-week period by the hourly rate. If employees want to check their hourly rate based on their gross pay, they simply divide the payment amount by the total number of hours worked.
Can you solve 4 words at once?
Biweekly and bimonthly each have a pair of meanings that are unhelpfully at odds with one another. We’ll dive deeper into the meaning of biweekly, why it sometimes confuses people, provide synonyms to avoid uncertainty, and discuss other time-related words that use the bi- prefix. Biweekly can mean twice a week or once every two weeks, but most people use it to refer to the latter. There are times, however, when a biweekly meeting on your work schedule may occur twice a week. But what about when you’re at the mercy of English as it’s wielded by others?
Sign up (it’s free!) to see how BambooHR saves you time and money by combining multiple systems into one complete HR platform. Biweekly may also be used as a noun to describe a newspaper or magazine that prints once every two weeks. Take a (break/brake) and (pore/pour) over this (cache/cachet/cash) of questions about commonly confused words.
Meaning of biweekly in English
In both cases, it’s commonly understood to mean twice monthly or once every other week, usually taking place on the same day of the week. This means that paychecks will be issued once every two weeks, usually on the same day. There are 52 weeks in a calendar year, meaning that people paid on a biweekly basis receive 26 paychecks per year. For, as anyone who pays attention to our work surely recognizes, we are at the mercy of the language. We diligently record the English lexicon in both its measured expansions and its wild proliferations, and any insistence by us that it favor the former over the latter is as whispers into a gale.
So while most people use it to mean once every two weeks, both definitions are grammatically correct. It’s important to provide context as to which definition you’re using when developing a meeting agenda or other documents for other people. These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word ‘biweekly.’ Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Having Payroll and Time Tracking in BambooHR makes gathering hourly payroll information and submitting it correctly much simpler. There’s less room for errors and more breathing room in your payroll schedule with all your personnel data, hourly data, and payroll processing in a single system.
Is ‘Irregardless’ a Real Word?
Biweekly is most often used in professional settings to describe the frequency of meetings or how often workers are paid. A biweekly meeting with your manager takes place once every two weeks unless otherwise specified. A semiweekly meeting, on the other hand, occurs twice a week. British people use the word fortnight—which derives from the old English word for “fourteen nights”—to refer to events that occur once every two weeks.
- If employees want to check their hourly rate based on their gross pay, they simply divide the payment amount by the total number of hours worked.
- Although not as commonly used, biweekly may also refer to a magazine or newspaper that publishes once every two weeks.
- Biweekly is most often used in professional settings to describe the frequency of meetings or how often workers are paid.
- For, as anyone who pays attention to our work surely recognizes, we are at the mercy of the language.
For maximum clarity, writing “every 2 weeks” or “twice a week” is advisable (regardless of correctness or incorrectness of “biweekly” in either sense). Biweekly means both, but most American English speakers use it to refer to something occurring every other week or twice monthly. Paired with Time Tracking, this add-on turns your account into the end-to-end solution to paying your employees accurately and on time—every time. Biannual is more straightforward, as it’s only used to mean twice a year.
What Is the Difference Between Biweekly and Semi-Monthly Payrolls?
Although this is an acceptable synonym for biweekly, it’s not a common term for American English speakers. An employee’s tax liabilities won’t be affected by the length of their pay period. Total tax liability is based on the total amount earned in a year rather than on paycheck frequency. The same is true for payroll taxes on the employer’s end.
In this case, the prefix bi- us is used to mean “occurring twice.” Use the word biennial to describe events occurring once every two years. While biweekly is one of the most commonly confused words with the bi- prefix, it’s not the only one. Another synonym for biweekly is semiweekly, which means “twice a week.” The prefix semi- means half or partially.
The taxes taken out of each paycheck will be different for weekly, biweekly, and monthly pay periods, but the overall amount ends up the same. The key difference between biweekly and semi-monthly pay lies in how often pay dates occur. Biweekly pay dates occur every other week, and semi-monthly pay is paid out on two specific dates a month (e.g. every 5th and 20th of the month). Biweekly is most commonly used to refer to the cadence of meetings or paychecks.
