Number & MeasureGreek → English
Decade
/ˈdɛkeɪd/noun
A period of ten years.
The Greek roots
δεκάς
dekás
group of ten
δέκα
déka
ten
Literally: “a set of ten”
The story of the word
Δεκάς named any group of ten, and the ten-year sense is a late narrowing. Livy's history was divided into decades of ten books each, and the rosary still counts its beads in decades of ten prayers. The French revolutionary calendar used a décade for a ten-day week, which is why the word can trip up a reader of texts from the 1790s.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Late Latin → Middle French → English
- First recorded
- 15th century
Same family
decathlondecagonDecalogue
In a sentence
The building stood empty for a decade before anyone bought it.