myriad
Americannoun
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myriads
plural
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a very great or indefinitely great number of persons or things.
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ten thousand.
adjective
noun
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(also used in plural) a large indefinite number
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archaic ten thousand
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of myriad
First recorded in 1545–55; from Greek mȳriad-, stem of mȳriás “ten thousand,” from mȳríos “countless”
Explanation
A myriad is a lot of something. If you’re talking about Ancient Greece, a myriad is ten thousand, but today you can use the word in myriad other ways. Myriad comes from the Greek myrioi, the word for ten thousand, or less specifically, a countless amount. Myriad can be a noun, like a myriad of choices, or an adjective, like when you study myriad subjects in college. If you lift a rock you might find a myriad of bugs. Sticklers often look down their noses at using myriad as a noun, but that usage came first.
Vocabulary lists containing myriad
Lord of the Flies
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Grade 10, List 2
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The Old Man and the Sea
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Year: 2019 Compiled by: Slate Staff, myriad tech experts Of note: Later expanded into a book, edited by former Future Tense editor Torie Bosch.
From Slate ● Oct. 7, 2026
Fiat executives warned I should be ready for gawkers with myriad questions and passersby angling to take photos.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026
The last step was drizzling a tablespoon of good olive oil over the batter which was a trick I had learned in one of the myriad baking newsletters I now subscribed to.
From Salon ● Sep. 26, 2026
Their myriad uniform combinations have been a hit.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 6, 2026
Before them, the shadow reached out and ended in knife-edge abruptness into an all-but-unbearable blaze of white light, that glittered from myriad crystals along a rocky ground.
From "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov
“Beyond healthcare, this fusion of nanotechnology and cells can lead to unique living hybrid robots, opening up myriads of interesting applications.”
From Salon ● Dec. 15, 2023
Stacking one’s few belongings in a safe place, trying to understand what is yelled in German, Russian, Ukrainian, looking into myriads of unknown faces, worried faces, some smiling faces.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 11, 2022
"Above all I want to thank those myriads of unassuming folk who have shown what love in action can achieve."
From BBC ● Dec. 24, 2021
Indeed, one way to approach quantum gravity is to aim to derive the Einstein equations, which are the laws general relativity applies to spacetime, from the laws of thermodynamics, applied to myriads of elementary events.
From Scientific American ● Apr. 4, 2019
And Ethir Anduin he saw, the mighty delta of the River, and myriads of sea-birds whirling like a white dust in the sun, and beneath them a green and silver sea, rippling in endless lines.
From "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkien
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
