different between myriad vs sundry

English

Etymology

From French myriade, from Late Latin myriadis (genitive of myrias), from Ancient Greek ???????? (muriádos), genitive of ?????? (muriás, “number of 10,000”), from ?????? (muríos, “numberless, countless, infinite”).

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /?m??i.æd/, /?m??i.?d/

Noun

myriad (plural myriads)

1. (historical) Ten thousand; 10,000 [from 16th c.]
2. A countless number or multitude (of specified things) [from 16th c.]
   • 1914, Henry Graham Dakyns, Xenophon, Cyropaedia, Book I:

     How far he surpassed them all may be felt if we remember that no Scythian, although the Scythians are reckoned by their myriads, has ever succeeded in dominating a foreign nation ...

Related terms

• tens of thousands

Usage notes

Used as an adjective (see below), 'myriad' requires neither an article before it nor a preposition after. Because of this, some consider the usage described in sense 2 above, where 'myriad' acts as part of a nominal (or noun) group (that is, "a myriad of animals"), to be tautological.

Translations

Adjective

myriad (not comparable)

1. (modifying a singular noun) Multifaceted, having innumerable elements [from 18th c.]
   • 1931, William Faulkner, Sanctuary, Vintage 1993, p. 131:

     one night he would be singing at the barred window and yelling down out of the soft myriad darkness of a May night; the next night he would be gone [...].

   • 2011 April 6–19, Kara Krekeler, "Researchers at Washington U. have 'itch' to cure problem", West End Word, 40 (7), p. 8:

     "As a clinician, it's a difficult symptom to treat," Cornelius said. "The end symptom may be the same, but what's causing it may be myriad."

2. (modifying a plural noun) Great in number; innumerable, multitudinous [from 18th c.]
   • 2013 September 28, Kenan Malik, "London Is Special, but Not That Special," New York Times (retrieved 28 September 2013):

     Driven by a perceived political need to adopt a hard-line stance, Mr. Cameron’s coalition government has imposed myriad new restrictions, the aim of which is to reduce net migration to Britain to below 100,000.

Translations

See also

• plethora

Swedish

Noun

myriad c

1. a myriad

Declension

References

• myriad in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)

English

Alternative forms

• sindry (dialectal)
• sondry (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English sundry, sondry, sindry, from Old English syndri? (“separate, single; sundry, various, distinct; special, private, peculiar, exceptional, particular; characteristic; (distributive) one each”), from sundor (“asunder, apart, separately”); equivalent to sunder +? -y. Cognate with Low German sunderig (“single, special”), Middle High German sunderig (“separate, special, private”), Swedish söndrig (“broken, tattered”), Dutch zonderlijk (“separate”) and more common Dutch afzonderlijk (“separate”).

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /?s?n.d?i/

Adjective

sundry

1. (obsolete) Separate; distinct; diverse.
2. (obsolete) Individual; one for each.
3. Several; diverse; more than one or two; various.
   • 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

     Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages / And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes / To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;

   • 1886-88, Richard F. Burton, The Supplemental Nights to the Thousand Nights and a Night:

     Thereupon, quoth he, "O woman, for sundry days I have seen thee attend the levée sans a word said; so tell me an thou have any requirement I may grant."

4. Consisting of a haphazard assortment of different kinds; miscellaneous.

Synonyms

• (separate): detached, loose; See also Thesaurus:separate
• (one for each): individual, personal, single
• (more than one or two): diverse, various; See also Thesaurus:heterogeneous
• (consisting of a haphazard assortment of different kinds): See also Thesaurus:assorted

Derived terms

• all and sundry
• sundrily
• sundriness

Related terms

• sunder

Noun

sundry (plural sundries)

1. (usually in the plural) A minor miscellaneous item.
   • 1865, Frances Freeling Broderip, Crosspatch, the Cricket, and the Counterpane, page 16,

     Here she kept her scarlet cloak, her Sunday shoes, her best cap and apron, and her steeple-crowned hat; but down at the very bottom, underneath her new checked petticoat, she found a little bag of sundries, which might serve her purpose, and which she sat down to examine at her leisure.

   • 1924 March, Advertisement, Popular Mechanics, page 192,

     Our big free catalog illustrates and describes parts, equipment and sundries that our more than a million riders may need.

   • 1931 June, Advertisement, Boys? Life, page 54,

     It pays you to buy from Bicycle Specialists We have been in business 40 years, and can offer you positively the lowest prices for high-grade bicycles, tires and sundries.

2. (in the plural, accounting) A category for irregular or miscellaneous items not otherwise classified.
   • 1905, William Mott Steuart (United States Bureau of the Census), Special Reports: Mines and quarries 1902, page 476,

     Miscellaheous expenses,—This item includes rent and royalties of all descriptions, “taxes, insurance, interest, advertising, office supplies, law expenses, injuries and damages, telegraph and telephone service, gas, and all other sundries not reported elsewhere.”

   • 1910, William Mott Steuart, Thomas Commerford Martin (United States Bureau of the Census), Street and Electric Railways 1907, page 181,

     In 1902 franchise values were largely carried as sundries, but it is a very common practice to charge these values to cost of construction and equipment.

   • 2009, Neville Box, VCE Accounting Units 3 & 4, 4th Edition, unnumbered page,

     Any payment listed in the Sundries column must be posted individually to the appropriate ledger account.

   • 2011, Robert Rodgers, Peter Lucas, Bookkeeping and Accounting Essentials, page 105,

     The petty cash book classifies payments as petrol and oils, postage, office, sundries and GST paid.

3. (usually in the plural, cricket, chiefly Australia) An extra.
   • 1954, Percy Taylor, Richmond?s 100 years of cricket: The Story of the Richmond Cricket Club, 1854-1954, unidentified page,

     The wicketkeeper for Williamstown had a bad day, as sundries topped the score with 30.

   • 1998, Donald Bradman, The Art of Cricket, page 167,

     In the modern era I sometimes feel the emphasis has erroneously shifted towards placing unwarranted importance on how few sundries are recorded.

   • 1999, Ashok Kumar, DPH Sports Series: Cricket, Discovery Publishing House, India, page 145,

     As for sundries, these are very often caused by erratic bowling or a nasty pitch.

Derived terms

• sundryman