Basic+ Word of the Day: every

every (adjective)

Every shirt is white.

We use the word every to mean ‘all of a group of things.’

• I wake up at 7am every day.

We can also use every to talk about something that repeats.

• The Olympic Games are every 4 years.

Common uses

When we do something only sometimes or rarely, we can say that we do it every now and then or every now and again. For example, “I don’t like the gym but I go there every now and then.” We can also use every so often in the same way. For example, “My brother lives in another country so I only see him every so often.”

In pop culture

We also say every time to mean that something happens every time something else happens. You can see this construction in the love song “Every Time We Say Goodbye” by Cole Porter. Who do you think she is singing the song to? What happens in the song every time they say goodbye?

Watch out for

When we use every, or words that have every in them, we are talking about a group of single things. So we can say, “All the people at the party are happy” but with every we say “Everyone at the party is happy.”

There are other meanings of every.