decade
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈdɛkeɪd/
ipa: /dəˈkeɪd/
enpr: dĕk'ād
enpr: dəkād'
ipa: /ˈdɛkeɪd/
ipa: /dəˈkeɪd/
ipa: /ˈdɛkəd/
rhymes: -eɪd
homophone: decayed stripped-by-parse_pron_post_template_fn
Forms: form: decades
form: decad
Etymology: From Middle English decade, from Old French decade, from Late Latin decādem (“(set of) ten”), from Ancient Greek δεκάς (dekás), from δέκα (déka, “ten”). In reference to a span of ten years, originally a clipping of the phrase decade of years. By surface analysis, deca- + -ade. Doublet of decad.
Senses: examples: text: a decade of soldiers
glosses: A group, set, or series of ten , particularly
examples: text: The 1960s was a turbulent decade.
text: I haven’t seen my cousin in over a decade!
text: The repeated exposure, over decades, to most taxa here treated has resulted in repeated modifications of both diagnoses and discussions, as initial ideas of the various taxa underwent—often repeated—conceptual modification.
ref: 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page viii:
text: Thru May: 1920s — The Decade That Roared. New exhibition portraying historical events and everyday life during the Roaring Twenties.
ref: 1979 December, “Museums”, in Texas Monthly, volume 7, number 12, page 22:
text: Athletes' use of herbal supplements has skyrocketed in the past two decades.
ref: 2013 March, David S. Senchina, “Athletics and Herbal Supplements”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 2, archived from the original on 16 May 2013, page 134:
text: Some of these employees have been with the company for decades, which made the company's claims that it offers good training, positive management and excellent job security and benefit packages all the more compelling.
ref: 2020 January 2, Paul Stephen, “A great place to work”, in Rail, page 29:
text: We would pick a decade / We wished we could live in instead of this / I'd say the 1830s but without all the racists
ref: 2024, “I Hate It Here”, in The Tortured Poets Department, performed by Taylor Swift:
text: President Donald Trump likes to boast about the brilliance of his late uncle John Trump, who spent decades as a professor of electrical engineering at the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). And when speaking about all manner of subjects, the president likes to make up stories filled with dramatic but fictional details. […] First, the president’s uncle died in 1985. Kaczynski was publicly revealed as the Unabomber more than a decade later, in 1996, when he was captured; before that, he had lived as a recluse in the Montana wilderness.
ref: 2025 July 16, Daniel Dale, “Fact check: Trump tells fictional story about his uncle and the Unabomber”, in CNN:
glosses: A group, set, or series of ten
A period of ten years , particularly such a period beginning with a year ending in 0 and ending with a year ending in 9.
examples: text: The year was divided up into twelve months renamed after the seasons [...]; each month comprised three ‘decades’ of ten days – with the décadi replacing Sundays as a day of rest; and each day was reconsecrated to a natural product or farming tool or technique.
ref: 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 481:
topics: history
human-sciences
sciences
glosses: A group, set, or series of ten
A period of ten days, particularly those in the ancient Egyptian, Coptic, and French Revolutionary calendars.
glosses: A group, set, or series of ten
A work in ten parts or books, particularly such divisions of Livy's History of Rome.
topics: Catholicism
Christianity
Roman-Catholicism
glosses: A group, set, or series of ten
A series of prayers counted on a rosary, typically consisting of an Our Father, followed by ten Hail Marys, and concluding with a Glory Be and sometimes the Fatima Prayer.
glosses: A group, set, or series of ten
Any of the sets of ten sequential braille characters with predictable patterns.
topics: business
electrical-engineering
electricity
electromagnetism
electronics
energy
engineering
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
physics
glosses: A group, set, or series of ten
A set of ten electronic devices used to represent digits.
topics: business
electrical-engineering
electricity
electromagnetism
electronics
energy
engineering
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
physics
glosses: A set of resistors, capacitors, etc. connected so as to provide even increments between one and ten times a base electrical resistance.
examples: text: There are decades between 1.8 and 18, between 25 and 250 and between 0.03 and 0.003.
topics: engineering
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
physics
glosses: The interval between any two quantities having a ratio of 10 to 1.
Synonyms: sense: 10 year period
word: decennium
sense: 10 year period
word: decennary
sense: 10 year period
word: decenniad
Derived terms: cosmological decade
decade box
decade counter
decadeful
decade-long
decadelong
decade long
decades-long
decadeslong
decadewise
decadist
light decade
lost decade
multidecade
quintade
semidecade
Related terms: decadal
1700s · 1710s · 1720s · 1730s · 1740s · 1750s · 1760s · 1770s · 1780s · 1790s
1800s · 1810s · 1820s · 1830s · 1840s · 1850s · 1860s · 1870s · 1880s · 1890s
1900s · 1910s · 1920s · 1930s · 1940s · 1950s · 1960s · 1970s · 1980s · 1990s
2000s · 2010s · 2020s · 2030s · 2040s · 2050s · 2060s · 2070s · 2080s · 2090s
2100s · 2110s · 2120s · 2130s · 2140s · 2150s · 2160s · 2170s · 2180s · 2190s
2200s · 2210s · 2220s · 2230s · 2240s · 2250s · 2260s · 2270s · 2280s · 2290s
00s · 10s · 20s · 30s · 40s · 50s · 60s · 70s · 80s · 90s
'00s · '10s · '20s · '30s · '40s · '50s · '60s · '70s · '80s · '90s
00's · 10's · 20's · 30's · 40's · 50's · 60's · 70's · 80's · 90's
zeros
zeroes
aughts
noughties
oughts · oneties
tens
teens · twenties · thirties · forties · fifties · sixties · seventies · eighties · nineties
Hungry Forties · Gay Nineties · Naughty Nineties · Roaring Twenties · Dirty Thirties · Swinging Sixties