Everyday LifeGreek → English
Myriad
/ˈmɪriəd/noun
A very large, indefinite number of things.
The Greek roots
μυριάς, μυριάδος
myriás, myriádos
ten thousand
Literally: “a ten thousand”
Follow a root:μυριάς, μυριάδος1 word
The story of the word
Ten thousand, exactly. A μυριάς was the largest number with its own name in Greek, and armies, fleets and treasuries were counted in units of it, which is how Herodotus reports Persian troop numbers. English took the word in the sixteenth century and let the precision go almost at once. The exact sense now survives mainly in translations of Greek historians, and in the myriapods, the millipedes and centipedes with their supposed ten thousand feet.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
myriapodmyriameter
In a sentence
A myriad of small decisions had already made the outcome inevitable.