The feminine noun shanah ('year') is the fundamental Hebrew term for annual time reckoning, appearing 880 times across every genre and period. It structures genealogies ('Adam lived 930 years,' Gen 5:5), dates royal reigns ('in the third year of King So-and-so'), marks agricultural and liturgical cycles ('three times in the year,' Exod 23:14), and measures prophetic periods ('seventy years,' Jer 25:11). The word occurs in singular, dual (shenatayim, 'two years'), and plural forms, with construct chains and every prepositional prefix, yet none of these inflections create distinct senses. Spanish anos, French ans, and German Jahre all render it uniformly.