hónappal

Hónappal is the instrumental form of the Hungarian noun hónap (month) used to express a time distance measured in months. It serves as an adverbial construction and is typically employed after numerals or determiners to indicate how many months apart or how long ago or later something occurred.

In practice, hónappal is most common in phrases with time references such as ezelőtt (ago) or később (later). Examples include:

- Három hónappal ezelőtt kezdődött a projekt. (The project began three months ago.)

- Két hónappal ezelőtt költöztünk. (We moved two months ago.)

- Egy hónappal később érkezett. (They arrived one month later.)

- Pár hónappal ezelőtt megtörtént. (It happened a few months ago.)

- Több hónappal ezelőtt fejezték be a munkát. (They completed the work several months ago.)

Morphology and usage notes:

- The form honappal is attached to hónap through the instrumental suffix -val/-vel, producing the common written form hónappal. The form is used after numerals and quantifiers (egy, kettő/két, három, pár, néhány, több).

- When indicating a future offset with később, the construction still uses hónappal, e.g., egy hónappal később (one month later).

- For general statements about time distance without a specific number, other time expressions may be preferred; hónappal specifically conveys a measured offset in months.

See also: Hungarian time expressions, öt-twenty.