A decade is a period of ten years. The word is derived (via French) from the Ancient Greek dekas which means ten.
This etymology is sometime confused with the Latin decas (ten) and dies (days), which is not correct,[1]. The other words for spans of years come from Latin: lustrum (5 years), century (100 years), millennium (1000 years).
Although any period of ten years is a decade,[2][3] a convenient and frequently referenced interval is based on the tens digit of the calendar year, as in using 1960s to represent the decade from 1960 to 1969.[4][5] Often, for brevity, only the tens part is mentioned (60s or sixties), although this may leave it uncertain which century is meant. These references are frequently used to encapsulate pop culture or other widespread phenomena that dominated such a decade, as in The Great Depression of the 1930s.
Some writers[6] like to point out that since the common calendar starts from the year 1, its first full decade contained the years from 1 to 10, the second decade from 11 to 20, and so on. The interval from the year 2001 to 2010 could thus be called the 201st decade, using ordinal numbers. However, contrary to practices in referencing centuries, ordinal references to decades are quite uncommon.
In addition to the interpretations noted above, a decade may refer to an arbitrary span of 10 years. For example, the statement "during his last decade, Mozart explored chromatic harmony to a degree rare at the time," merely refers to the last 10 years of Mozart's life without regard to which calendar years are encompassed.
Thus, an unqualified reference to, for example, "the decade" or "this decade" may strictly speaking have multiple interpretations, and one must consider whether the context is, for example, a cultural reference, an ordinal reference, or some other context.
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| A
Decade by |
When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness
Now you are like morning bread,
Smooth and pleasant.
I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,
But I am completely nourished.
| This work is in the public domain in
the United States because it was published before
January 1, 1923.
The author died in 1925, so this work is also in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 80 years or less. This work may also be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. |
DECADE (from Gr. SEKa, ten), a group or series containing ten members, particularly a period of ten years. In the new calendar made at the time of the French Revolution in 1793, a decade of ten days took the place of the week. The word is also used of the divisions containing ten books or parts into which the history of Livy was divided.
Categories: DAS-DEC
A decade (pronounce: DEK-aid) is a period of 10 years. The word comes from the Ancient Greek word for ten: "deka". 10 decades make a century. Decades in the 20th century are normally called "the eighties" or "the nineties", and written "the 80s" or "the 90s". Decades in other centuries are written in full, e.g. "the 1890s".
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