thousand

[ thou-zuhnd ]

noun

, plural thou·sands, (as after a numeral) thou·sand.

1. a cardinal number, 10 times 100.
2. a symbol for this number, as 1000 or M.
3. thousands. the numbers between 1000 and 999,999, as in referring to an amount of money:

   Property damage was in the thousands.

4. a great number or amount.
5. Also thousand's place.
   1. (in a mixed number) the position of the fourth digit to the left of the decimal point.
   2. (in a whole number) the position of the fourth digit from the right.

adjective

1. amounting to 1000 in number.

thousand

/ ˈθaʊzənd /

noun

1. the cardinal number that is the product of 10 and 100 See also number
2. a numeral, 1000, 10³, M, etc, representing this number
3. often plural a very large but unspecified number, amount, or quantity

   they are thousands of miles away

4. plural the numbers 2000–9999

   the price of the picture was in the thousands

5. the amount or quantity that is one hundred times greater than ten
6. something represented by, representing, or consisting of 1000 units
7. maths the position containing a digit representing that number followed by three zeros

   in 4760, 4 is in the thousand's place

determiner

1. 1. amounting to a thousand

      a thousand ships

   2. ( as pronoun )

      a thousand is hardly enough

2. amounting to 1000 times a particular scientific unit

Word History and Origins

Origin of thousand¹

before 900; Middle English; Old English thūsend; cognate with Dutch duizend, Old High German dūsunt, Old Norse thūsund, Gothic thūsindi

Word History and Origins

Origin of thousand¹

Old English thūsend; related to Old Saxon thūsind, Old High German thūsunt, Old Norse thūsund

Idioms and Phrases

see bat a thousand ; by the dozen (thousand) ; one in a million (thousand) ; picture is worth a thousand words .

Example Sentences

Well over a thousand holes in, I average less than four strokes per hole.

From The Daily Beast

It cost several thousand dollars and a high-powered former district attorney to get the charges dropped.

From The Daily Beast

Neither could her three-week, multi-thousand dollar stay, which was supposed to be a recovery period.

From The Daily Beast

One person who dialed in has “a pretty big Twitter following,” Goff said, “several thousand.”

From The Daily Beast

Two years into an Arctic expedition, they were forced to abandon ship a thousand miles north of Siberia.

From The Daily Beast

It contains above eighty thousand houses, and about six hundred thousand inhabitants.

From Project Gutenberg

The garrison of the town and fortress was nearly three thousand strong.

From Project Gutenberg

There were two battalions, together about a thousand men; and they brought a field-piece with them.

From Project Gutenberg

And it was no light task, then, for six hundred men to keep the peace on a thousand miles of frontier.

From Project Gutenberg

Ten thousand of the best troops in Mexico entered Texas and were shortly to be followed by ten thousand more.

From Project Gutenberg