Trivia Time

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

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decade

American  

[dek-eyd, duh-keyd] / 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

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

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

Williams and Gilbert were married in February 2016 after nearly a decade of dating but split the following year in July 2017, saying at the time that marriage wasn’t for the faint of heart.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 24, 2026

Hundreds of unvaccinated children have died from the flu in recent years as rates of immunization have dropped by double digits since the start of the decade.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 23, 2026

You can look beyond the rhetoric for evidence of this: AI has been a cornerstone of China's technological ambitions for more than a decade, whether Xi emphasises it publicly or not.

From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026

The right map above illustrates that shift, with lighter reds and blues showing much smaller rates of change during that decade.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 23, 2026

In 1867, nearly a decade after the publication of Origin, he began to complete a new manuscript, The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, in which he would fully explicate this view of inheritance.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

But there’s no guarantee that the increased spending or film production will take place in the Golden State, which has been losing market share in the industry for decades.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 23, 2026

The move deals a blow to a grassroots coalition that included tribes, environmentalists and mountain bikers, some of whom have fought for decades to rein in logging at Jackson Demonstration State Forest in Mendocino County.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 23, 2026

Long term ocean observations are especially valuable because natural changes in currents can occur over years or even decades.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 23, 2026

Once a project is built, he says, the price of the electricity it produces can be fixed for decades, since the fuel, sunlight, is free.

From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2026

For decades, only the Bible sold more copies.

From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock