person-year

Q: Where does person-year come from?

Compound of person + year, although, as with any such unit of measure (e.g., ton-miles, newton metres), the mathematical relationship of multiplication is simultaneously involved: X persons working during Y years = X × Y = Z person-years.

Word Rarity Common

Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.41 in modern English

Syllables: per-son--year
IPA

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Meaning

noun

One person's working time for a year, or the equivalent, used as a measure of how much work or labor is required or consumed to perform some task.

Example Sentences

"Meronyms: person-hour, man-hour < person-day, man-day < person-month, man-month"
"Altogether it took hundreds of person-years to build the bridge and dam, and such a payroll is not cheap."
"This is especially true for Black women. the rate of deaths from breast cancer among Black women in their 40s was 27 per 100,000 person-years, compared to 15 per 100,000 person-years among White women, according to a 2023 JAMA Network Open study."

Etymology

Compound of person + year, although, as with any such unit of measure (e.g., ton-miles, newton metres), the mathematical relationship of multiplication is simultaneously involved: X persons working during Y years = X × Y = Z person-years.

Inflected Forms

person-years (plural)

Synonyms

man-year

How to pronounce person-year

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