plethora
Americannoun
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overabundance; excess.
His crisis brought him a plethora of advice and an almost complete lack of assistance.
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a large quantity or wide array; a lot.
The co-op program offers a plethora of advantages for students.
Visitors are drawn to the main beach, where a plethora of watersports can be enjoyed.
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Pathology Archaic. a morbid condition due to excess of red corpuscles in the blood or increase in the quantity of blood.
noun
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superfluity or excess; overabundance
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obsolete pathol a condition caused by dilation of superficial blood vessels, characterized esp by a reddish face
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of plethora
First recorded in 1535–45; from New Latin, from Greek plēthṓra “fullness,” from plḗthein “to fill, be full”; see also complete ( def. ), full 1
Explanation
Plethora means an abundance or excess of something. If you have 15 different people who want to take you on a date, you have a plethora of romantic possibilities. Plethora comes from the Greek for "fullness." Although it was originally used only in old-fashioned medicine to describe the condition of having too much blood, we use it to talk about any excessive supply. If you run a theater and all the seats are taken, that's a full house. But if the seats are full and people are standing in the aisles, you have a plethora of patrons. The stress is on the first syllable: PLETH-uh-ruh.
Vocabulary lists containing plethora
300 Most Difficult "SAT" Words
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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.
He uploaded his first song, Plethora, to TiKTok in 2019 and was "gassed" when it received 1,000 plays in a day.
From BBC • Jan. 8, 2026
Plethora of community events: North Rosslyn is dotted with high-rises, some townhouses and a few single-family homes.
From Washington Post • Jun. 28, 2017
Plethora and hypertrophy of the heart predispose to it.
From Special Report on Diseases of the Horse by Michener, Charles B.
Plethora has filled us with indifference; and we are covered from head to foot with the callosities of habitual opulence.
From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) by Stevenson, Robert Louis
Plethora probably takes the insect nearer to the skies, instead of dragging it towards the dust.
From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 by Chambers, William
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.
