ANNUALLY - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

ANNUALLYAuthored

The Law Mind • 813 words

Definition

Once every year; at the end of each successive year throughout a period of time, whether that period is fixed or contingent. As applied to interest obligations in contracts, "annually" does not mean a single payment at the close of one year — it means a recurring obligation to pay at the end of each and every year for the duration of the loan or agreement. A note payable with "interest annually" implies that interest begins to run from the date the note is made, and that payment falls due at each successive year-end until the principal obligation is satisfied.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Once every year without fail; yearly.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Yearly; year by year.

The ordinary meaning and the legal meaning are close but carry a critical difference in the contract context. In everyday usage, "annually" simply describes a frequency — once a year. In legal instruments, particularly debt and interest provisions, courts have consistently read "annually" as creating a repeating obligation at each year-end for the full term of the instrument, not merely a one-time event at the end of year one. A party reading a loan document with ordinary eyes might miss this distinction; a party reading it legally cannot.

Common Confusion

"Annually" is sometimes read as though synonymous with "at the end of one year" — that is, as if the word modifies only the first year's interest rather than establishing a recurring payment schedule. Courts have expressly rejected this reading. The term creates a series of annual payment obligations, each accruing and falling due at the close of its respective year. This confusion is most consequential in disputes over compound versus simple interest, the timing of default, and the calculation of arrears.

Why It Matters in Research

The legal significance of "annually" is almost entirely concentrated in a single interpretive context: interest and payment obligations in contracts and instruments. Researchers should treat this as a term of art in that context.

Several traps appear in historical sources. First, older case law and dictionaries present "annually" as settled and unambiguous, but this masks the interpretive work courts had to perform to arrive at the "recurring obligation" reading. The rule that "annually" means each and every year — not just the first year — was a judicial construction, not a self-evident reading.

Second, Bouvier's entry introduces a separate, unrelated usage: "annual" as used in a contract was construed (citing 220 U.S. 321) as meaning "refusing to perform further" rather than rescinding or avoiding. This appears in the context of contract termination clauses, not interest calculations. Researchers should be careful not to conflate these two entirely different interpretive threads that appear under the same headword in Bouvier's.

Third, when researching instruments in historical corpus materials — mortgages, bonds, promissory notes, trust instruments — the presence of "annually" in an interest clause should prompt inquiry into when each annual installment was deemed to fall due, whether late payment of one installment triggered default on the whole, and how courts in the relevant jurisdiction calculated accrued interest arrears. These questions all turn on the "recurring obligation" reading and can significantly affect the legal outcome reflected in a document.

The term appears with some frequency in gift tax and estate planning instruments where annual payment or annual exclusion structures are involved. In those contexts, the recurring-obligation meaning remains operative.

Historical Dictionary Support

The four source dictionaries are in close agreement on the core interpretive rule: "annually" in an interest obligation means payment at the end of each and every year, not merely at the end of one year. Black's (both editions) and Anderson's state this directly and consistently. Bouvier's agrees but adds the separate contract-termination gloss, which is potentially misleading if read as part of the interest analysis.

Anderson's is the most practically useful of the historical entries, adding the specific application that a note payable "with interest annually" implies interest runs from the date of making — a detail the other dictionaries omit. Anderson's also cross-references ANNUS and YEAR, signaling that disputes about what constitutes a legal "year" in a given jurisdiction could affect how "annually" is computed.

What the historical dictionaries do not address: the question of whether "annually" mandates simple or compound interest, what happens when an annual payment date falls on a non-business day, or how "annually" interacts with acceleration clauses. These gaps are significant for researchers working with modern instruments and should be filled by case law and statutory research rather than dictionary reliance alone.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

The Federal Gift Tax — IRC Sections 2501–2524 and the Annual Exclusion (The Law Mind Trusts, Estates & Probate Encyclopedia)

ANNUALLYmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

The meaning of this term, as applied to interest, is not an under- J taking to pay interest at the end of one year only, but to pay interest at the end of each and every year during a period of time, either fixed or contingent. 6 Gray, 164. See, also, 19 S. C. 89; 16 Ohio St. 348.

ANNUALLYmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

every year. Yearly; returning As applied to interest it is not an under- taking to pay interest at the end of one year only, but to pay interest at the end of each and every year during a period of time, either fixed or contingent; 6 Gray 164. The word "annual" as used in a contract was construed as meaning, refusing to per- form further, not to rescind or avoid. 220 U. S. 321. As applied to the pay- ment of interest, means not the payment of interest at the end of one year only, but at the end of each and every year, during a period of time, either fixed or contingent. Abbott; 6 Gray 163. ANNUITY (Lat. annuus, yearly). A yearly sum stipulated to be paid to another in fee, or for life or years, and chargeable only on the person of the grantor; Co. Litt. 144b; 2 Bls. Com, 40; Lumley, Ann. 1; 5 Mart. La. 312; Dav. Ir. 14; 24 N. J. Eq. 358; 23 Barb. 216. An annuity is different from a rent-charge, with which it is sometimes confounded, the annuity being chargeable on the person merely, and so far personalty; while a rent-charge is something re- served out of realty, or fixed as a burden upon the estate in land; 2 Bla. Com. 40; Rolle, Abr. 296; 10 Watts 127. An annuity in fee is said to be a per- sonal fee; for, though transmissible, as as is is real real estate of inheritance; Ambl. Ch. 782; Challis, R. P. 46; liable to forfeiture as a hereditament; 7 Coke, 34а and not constituting assets in the hands of an ex- ecutor, it lacks some other characteristics of real- ty. The husband is not entitled to curtesy, nor the wife to dower, in an annuity; Co. Litt. 89 a. It can- not be conveyed by way of use: use; 9 Wils. 294; is not within the statute of frauds, and may be bequeathed and assigned as personal estate; 2 Ves. Sen. 70; 4 B. & AM 50; Roscoe, Real Act. 68, 85; 3 Kent 460. To enforce the payment of an annuity, an action of annuity lay at common law, but when brought for arrears must be be- fore the annuity determines; Co. Litt. 285. In case of the insolvency or bankruptcy of the debtor, the capital of the constituted annuity becomes exigible; La. Civ. Code, art. 2760; stat. 6 Geo. IV. c. 16, §§ 54, 108; 5 Ves. 708; 4 id. 768; 1 Belt, Supp. pp. Ves. 308, 481. See 1 Rop. Leg. 588; CHARGE.

ANNUALLYmain

Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890

Applied to the payment of interest imports, not an undertaking to pay at the end of a year, but at the end of every year during the period of time, fixed or contingent.2 A note payable in five years from date "with interest annually" implies that the interest begins to run from the making of the note. See ANNUS; YEAR.

ANNUALLYadv.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

Yearly; year by year.

annuallyadv

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

Once every year without fail, yearly

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