different between dozen vs decade

English

Etymology

From Middle English dozen, dozein, doseyne, from Old French dozaine (“a group of twelve”), from doze (“twelve”) + -aine (“-ish”), from Latin duodecim (“twelve”) (from duo (“two”) + decem (“ten”)) + -ana (“-ish”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?d?z?n/
• Rhymes: -?z?n

Noun

dozen (plural dozens or dozen)

1. A set of twelve.

   Can I have a dozen eggs, please?

   I ordered two dozen doughnuts.

   There shouldn't be more than two dozen Christmas cards left to write.

   Pack the shirts in dozens, please.

2. (as plural only, always followed by of) A large, unspecified number of, comfortably estimated in small multiples of twelve, thus generally implied to be significantly more than ten or twelve, but less than perhaps one or two hundred; many.

   There must have been dozens of examples just on the first page.

   There were dozens and dozens of applicants before the job was posted.
3. (metallurgy) An old English measure of ore containing 12 hundredweight.
   • 1957, H.R. Schubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry, p. 139

     The dozen as a measure for iron ore remained almost completely constant at 12 cwts. during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Synonyms

• (followed by of: a large number of): a great deal of, a lot of, heaps of, hundreds of, loads of, lots of, many, millions of, scores of, scads of, thousands of

Antonyms

• (followed by of: a large number of): few

Abbreviations

• doz

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

Translations

See also

• gross

Anagrams

• Donze, zendo, zoned

Dutch

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -o?z?n

Noun

dozen

1. Plural form of doos

Anagrams

• zoden, zonde

Scots

Etymology

Related to doze.

Verb

dozen

1. (transitive) To stupefy.
2. (intransitive) To become stupefied.

English

Etymology

From Middle English [Term?], from Middle French decade, from Late Latin decas (“(set of) ten”), from Ancient Greek ????? (dekás), from ???? (déka, “ten”). In reference to a span of ten years, originally a clipping of the phrase decade of years. The word is equivalent to deca- +? -ade.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?d?ke?d/, /d??ke?d/
• (General American) enPR: d?k'?d, d?k?d', IPA^(key): /?d?ke?d/, /d??ke?d/
• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /?d?k?d/ (set of ten prayers in a Rosary)
• Rhymes: -e?d
• Homophone: decayed (one pronunciation)

Noun

decade (plural decades)

1. A group, set, or series of ten [from 16th c.], particularly:
   1. A period of ten years [from 17th c.], particularly such a period beginning with a year ending in 0 and ending with a year ending in 9. [from 19th c.]

      Synonym: (in some contexts) decennium
   2. A period of ten days, (historical) particularly those in the ancient Egyptian, Coptic, and French Revolutionary calendars. [from 18th c.]
   3. (literary, archaic) A work in ten parts or books, particularly such divisions of Livy's History of Rome. [from 15th c.]
   4. (Roman Catholicism) 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.
   5. Any of the sets of ten sequential braille characters with predictable patterns.
   6. (electronics) A set of ten electronic devices used to represent digits.
2. (electronics) A set of resistors, capacitors, etc. connected so as to provide even increments between one and ten times a base electrical resistance.
3. (physics, engineering) The interval between any two quantities having a ratio of 10 to 1.

Usage notes

Although a decade may refer to any group of ten years, it often particularly refers to the informal ten-year periods of the calendar whose last digits run from 0 to 9. Some style guides may prefer that decade refers exclusively to such calendar periods while decennium, decennary, &c. refers to ten-year periods in other contexts.

It should be noted that the method of computing a decade is distinguished from the proper computation of centuries and millennia, which run from 1 to 0. The 1st century began with the year 1 and ended with the year 100, but "the Nineties" are the years whose name includes the word ninety, from '90 to '99 with all those years with a 9 in the tens place digit.

Coordinate terms

• (group) monad, duad/dyad, triad, tetrad, pentad, hexad, heptad, octad, ennead/nonad, decad/decade, hendecad, dodecad/duodecade, chiliad

Related terms

• (adj.): decadal
• (10-year period; adj.; in some contexts): see decennial

Translations

See also

References

• “decade, n.”, in OED Online ?, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1894

Anagrams

• deaced

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from French décade (“period of ten days”), cognate with German Dekade etc. In the sense “period of ten days” influenced by English decade; this meaning is seldom found outside poor translations from English.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?de??ka?.d?/
• Hyphenation: de?ca?de
• Rhymes: -a?d?

Noun

decade f (plural decades or decaden, diminutive decadetje n)

1. (historical) a décade, 'week' of ten days in the French republican calendar; hence any ten consecutive days
2. a set of ten book volumes, as part of a larger opus
3. (uncommon) a decade, period of ten years

Synonyms

• (ten years): decennium, jaartiental

Descendants

• ? Indonesian: dekade

Italian

Etymology

deca- +? -ade

Noun

decade f (plural decadi)

1. a decade, a period of ten days

Related terms

• deca-
• decennio (ten years)

Verb

decade

1. third-person singular indicative present of decadere

Anagrams

• deceda

Latin

Noun

dec?de

1. ablative singular of dec?s

References

• decade in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)

Middle French

Noun

decade f (plural decades)

1. a series of 10 books

References

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (decade, supplement)

Romanian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [de?kade]

Verb

decade

1. third-person singular present indicative of dec?dea