Trivia Time

Which decade is often associated with flappers, jazz, and speakeasies?

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decade

American  

[dek-ayd, duh-kayd] / ˈdɛk eɪd, dəˈkeɪd /

noun

• decades
  plural

1. a period of ten years.

   the three decades from 1776 to 1806.

2. a period of ten years beginning with a year whose last digit is zero.

   the decade of the 1980s.

3. a group, set, or series of ten.

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decade British  

/ dɪˈkeɪd, ˈdɛkeɪd /

noun

1. a period of ten consecutive years

2. a group or series of ten

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• half-decade
  noun
• decadal
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• decades
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of decade

First recorded in 1425–75; late Middle English, from Middle French, from Late Latin decad-, stem of decas, from Greek dekás “group of ten”; equivalent to deca- + -ade ²

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Explanation

She was so nervous to see her high school sweetheart at their reunion: it had been a decade (ten years) since she'd seen him at graduation, and she still got butterflies thinking about him. A decade is a period of ten years. Decade contains dec, which is used in words that have to do with tens. The Marty Paich Dectet was a band with ten players. A decahedron is a shape with ten faces. And the decimal system is based on the number ten.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

decade decades

You are more relaxed than you have ever been, and you have forgotten the way nearly every news story of the last decade grabs hold of your heart and squeezes, twists, strangles.

From Slate ● Nov. 1, 2026

When Ruchira Ranasingha left Sri Lanka almost a decade ago, she could never have imagined she would end up stranded on a tiny archipelago in the South Pacific.

From BBC ● Oct. 31, 2026

Within a decade, scientists were dreaming about machines that would be smarter than us at everything, including the design of machines.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 31, 2026

It also includes Warner Center, a commercial hub in Woodland Hills with a massive development plan a decade in the making.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 31, 2026

For nearly a decade, she and my father held a fragile truce between them, with Jagu living under her care, eating meals in her room and wearing clothes that she stitched for him.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

She spent decades as a medical librarian at the Ft.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 1, 2026

So I packed my things and went somewhere I hadn’t been for decades: a place where the internet wasn’t.

From Slate ● Nov. 1, 2026

As a child growing up in Slovenia in 1999, Dr Rok Nežič couldn't have known that an asteroid that was discovered in New Mexico that year would be named after him almost three decades later.

From BBC ● Nov. 1, 2026

Scientists have proposed a surprising new explanation for why the universe exists, and it centers on a mysterious particle that physicists have largely overlooked for decades.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 1, 2026

At the end of his trial four decades earlier, he had told reporters he intended to live a fairly quiet life from that point on—quiet, at least, in comparison to the tumultuous Pentagon Papers years.

From "Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War" by Steve Sheinkin

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