quarterly

quarterly — adjective

1. happening, produced, or paid once every three months, so that there are four occ

1.adjectiveB1
Definition

happening, produced, or paid once every three months, so that there are four occurrences within a calendar year

Example

Eli presented the quarterly sales figures at the board meeting.

attributive use before noun: quarterly report / sales / meeting

Chidi received his quarterly bonus at the end of March.

Common collocations
  • quarterly report
  • quarterly meeting
  • quarterly payment
  • quarterly dividend
  • quarterly review
  • quarterly bonus
  • quarterly invoice
  • quarterly sales
  • quarterly subscription
Synonyms
  • three-monthly

    much less common; used mainly in British publishing contexts

  • once-a-quarter

    informal, often used in hyphenated compound form

Antonyms
  • monthly

    happening twelve times a year instead of four

  • annual

    happening once a year instead of four times

Grammar Patterns

quarterly + noun (report, meeting, payment, review)

Usage Note

Frequently placed before nouns like report, meeting, payment, bonus, and review. This adjective is not normally used after a linking verb (✗ The review is quarterly) — instead use a prepositional phrase: The review takes place on a quarterly basis.

Common Mistakes

We have a quarterly team lunch every week.
We have a quarterly team lunch every three months.
quarterly means once every three months, not every week.

quarterly — adverb

quarterly — noun

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: adjective/1

Quarterly, monthly, bimonthly, semiannual, and annual all describe how often something occurs, but at different intervals. Monthly means twelve times a year (once every four weeks), while quarterly means four times a year (once every three months). Bimonthly is ambiguous — it can mean either twice a month or once every two months, so careful writers avoid it or specify. Semiannual means twice a year, and annual means once a year. In business contexts, quarterly earnings reports are the standard for publicly traded companies, whereas monthly sales figures are used for internal tracking. For example: 'The team reviews customer data monthly, but senior management only sees a quarterly summary.' Choose the word that names the exact interval you need.

monthly ↗bimonthlysemiannualannual ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

Phrases

  • on a quarterly basis

Prepositions

  • on a quarterly basis
  • per quarter

Etymology

LatinOld FrenchEnglish

Quarterly comes from the word quarter, meaning 'one of four equal parts'. Quarter traces back through Old French quartier to Latin quartarius ('a fourth part'), ultimately from Latin quartus ('fourth'). The suffix -ly turns the noun quarter into an adjective or adverb. The meaning 'occurring every three months' first appeared in English around the early 1400s, and by the 1600s quarterly was also used as a noun for a periodical that comes out four times a year.