[Late ME., f. LEAP sb.1; prob. of much older formation, as the ON. hlaup-ár is presumably, like other terms of the Roman calendar, imitated from Eng.
The name may refer to the fact that in the bissextile year any fixed festival after Feb. falls on the next weekday but one to that on which it fell in the preceding year, not on the next weekday as usual. Cf. med.L. saltus lunæ (OE. mónan hlýp), the omission of a day in the reckoning of the lunar month, made every nineteen years to bring the calendar into accord with the astronomical phenomena.]
A year having one day (now Feb. 29) more than the common year; a bissextile year. † To make leap year of: (fig.) to pass over.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), IV. 199. Þat tyme Iulius amended þe kalender, and fonde þe cause of the lepe ȝere [L. rationem bisexti invenit].
1481. Caxton, Myrr., II. xxxi. 127. Bysexte or lepe yere, whiche in iiij yere falleth ones.
1562. J. Heywood, Prov. & Epigr. (1867), 207. The next leape yere after wedding was first made.
1606. Birnie, Kirk-Buriall (1833), 38. In civil entries to heritage, if it be for the better, men can make leap-yeare of their father and seeke farther uppe.
1704. Hearne, Duct. Hist. (1714), I. 3. That Year was called the Bissextile; and by us Leap-Year because one day of the Week is leaped over in the Observation of the Festivals.
1834. Nat. Philos., Astron., i. 44/1 (U. K. S.). The years 1600, 2000, 2400, would be leap years.
