Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A period of ten years; a decade.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A period of ten years.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A period of ten years.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A period of ten years.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a period of 10 years

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin, from decennis, lasting for ten years : decem, ten; see dekm̥ in Indo-European roots + annus, year; see at- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin decem ("ten") + annum ("year").

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Examples

  • He was occupied actively with teaching, but the dominant feature of the decennium was his assumption of the Darwinian doctrines.

    Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work 1904

  • He was occupied actively with teaching, but the dominant feature of the decennium was his assumption of the Darwinian doctrines.

    Thomas Henry Huxley A Sketch Of His Life And Work Mitchell, P Chalmers 1900

  • According to Swedish daily DN, seven young Swedish prose authors have launched an ambitious literary manifesto called, in Swedish, Manifest för ett nytt litterärt decennium.

    Archive 2009-08-01 David McDuff 2009

  • But often after I've cursed Kate and mobile telephony in one breath, she'll come up with something so sweet that she's secured her honorary place among my friends for the next decennium or two.

    Girlfriend 2009

  • But often after I've cursed Kate and mobile telephony in one breath, she'll come up with something so sweet that she's secured her honorary place among my friends for the next decennium or two.

    Girlfriend 2009

  • Phaerus Aegipti rex captus oculis per decennium, oraculum consuluit de uxoris pudicitia.

    Anatomy of Melancholy 2007

  • "The third decennium [or term of ten years] having now run out, and a fourth beginning, he, being forced to it, undertook the government."

    From the Talmud and Hebraica 1602-1675 1979

  • In the last but one decennium of the sixteenth century, the first dramatists arose who pursued fixed literary tendencies.

    Shakspere and Montaigne Jacob Feis

  • Another decennium had to pass (Shakspere had long since withdrawn to his Stratford) before the taste of Whitehall had been so much lowered that Jonson could become a favourite of the courtly element.

    Shakspere and Montaigne Jacob Feis

  • This addition to our wealth by the labor of the children, in the first ten years, would be small; but in the second, and each succeeding decennium, when we count children and their descendants, it would be large and constantly augmenting.

    The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 1, January, 1864 Various

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