the.com/quarterly
The calendar's most powerful word, capable of making grown executives sweat on schedule.
means Happening once every three months, or four times a year — typically describing reports, payments, or meetings tied to a fiscal calendar.
from From 'quarter,' meaning a fourth part, via Old French 'quartier' from Latin 'quartarius,' itself rooted in 'quartus,' fourth. The '-ly' is the everyday English suffix that turns a thing into a rhythm — daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly. Slicing the year into four equal pieces is an old accounting and tax habit, and the word has carried that bureaucratic weight for centuries: a quarter isn't just a measure of time but a deadline waiting to happen.
- origin
- From Latin quartus, meaning fourth
- why four
- Three months evenly splits a 12-month year
- corporate fear
- Drives short-term thinking critics call quarterly capitalism
- first reports
- US firms began quarterly filings in the 1930s
- surprise use
- Also names plenty of scholarly journals
apple fiscal q1 2024 — apple inc announced $119.6 billion in revenue for oct-dec 2023 quarter
federal reserve fomc meetings — us central bank meets 8 times per year (roughly quarterly) to set interest rates