The word "every" is commonly used with time-related phrases to indicate regular intervals or repeated actions. In these constructions, "every" helps to establish a schedule or frequency, making it clear how often something happens within a given time frame.

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First of all, "every" can be used with any unit of time, from a second to a century, to indicate that something happens once during that time period. "Every day" means that something happens once in 24 hours, whereas something that happens "every year" happens at least one time during a 365-day period.

Otters have a high metabolism, so they have to eat almost a fifth of their weight every day.

Captions 36-37, America's National Parks: Olympic

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In February, every year, we host a large pond hockey tournament.

Caption 10, Adventures with Kate: Pond Hockey

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We also use "every other" to talk about a predictable frequency that skips time. For example, "every other day" means the event happens one day, then skips the next day, and happens again the day after that. 

I have to go shopping almost every other day.

Caption 36, An Apartment: In Japan

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Always living out of a bag... being in a different location every other week.

Captions 33-34, Kiteboarding Rider Profile: Tom Court

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Sometimes, we also use "every" with "few" or "a couple" and a plural noun. Have a look: 

I just get touched-up every... every few seconds.

Caption 74, Food Diaries: Everything Kylie Jenner Eats in a Day

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It could be every couple hours or every half hour.

Caption 10, Brooklyn Butcher: A & S Italian

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And sometimes, the interval has a number that really needs to be specified. These sentences state that something happens once in a four-day period and once in a six-week period. 

The eaglet can gain more than a pound every four days.

Caption 33, America's National Parks: Olympic

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The windows have to be cleaned once every six weeks.

Caption 14, In London: with Lauren Buckingham Palace

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Further Learning
You will find many examples likes these on Yabla English. For an overview of the difference between "each" and "every," see our related lesson.

Whenever you see what appears to be a verb in English ending in -ing, you have to be careful as to how you interpret the sentence, as it may wind up that this apparent verb is actually a noun or an adjective! In English, gerunds and present participles are formed by adding -ing to the infinitive form of the verb ("to surf" becomes "surfing"), or for verbs ending in -e, dropping the -e and adding -ing ("to love" becomes "loving"). A gerund is a verb that acts as a noun in sentence. A present participle is a verb that is used to make a verb phrase or an adjective.

Therefore an English verb ending in -ing can either be noun (gerund), an adjective (formed from a present participle), or a verb (a present participle). This all sounds a bit complicated, but if you look at some examples, it's pretty easy to tell the difference!

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I've always loved surfing.

Caption 19, Kiteboarding - Rider Profile - Tom Court

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What does he love? He loves surfing. In the above example, the subject of the sentence is "I," and the object of the sentence is "surfing." Since you can make a noun out of "the surfing" as used here, it is a gerund.
 

We watch a couple of surfing videos.

Caption 26, Kiteboarding - Sam Light Interview

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What kind of videos is he watching? Surfing videos. Here it is clear that "surfing" is an adjective that is modifying the noun "videos."
 

The four of us have just been surfing different spots.

Caption 10, Naish SUP - Aloha Big Island!

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What have they been doing? They have been surfing. In this last example, by pairing the verbs together, you get "have been surfing." This is the verb "to surf" in its form as present participle verb.

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Further Learning
Write down some of your favorite verbs, add -ing to them, following the rules above, and search Yabla English to see them used in a real-world context as either a gerund, adjective, or present participle verb.