The word annual comes from the Old French word annuel, and can first be found in one of the Wycliffe’s Bible published around 1382, when the term “annuel werker” appears . Wycliffe’s Bible was a group of Bible’s translated into Middle English during the late 14th century.
In 1603, however, the word appeared as annuall in Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “Giues him three thousand crownes in annuall fee” because it was around the 1500’s that the word became refashioned from the Classical Latin word annāl-em which, itself, went on to become annuāl-em.
It is mostly as an adjective to describe something relating to the year, for example an annual event or annual fee. It also used to refer to a book which is published at the same time every year as a kind of a review.
An early example of an annual was Peter Parley’s Annual written in 1840, which was compiled by several authors and aimed at young people and described life in Boston Massachusetts.
