plethora

American  

[pleth-er-uh] / ˈplɛθ ər ə /

noun

• plethoras
  plural

1. overabundance; excess.

   His crisis brought him a plethora of advice and an almost complete lack of assistance.

2. 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.

3. Pathology Archaic. a morbid condition due to excess of red corpuscles in the blood or increase in the quantity of blood.

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plethora British  

/ ˈplɛθərə /

noun

1. superfluity or excess; overabundance

2. obsolete pathol a condition caused by dilation of superficial blood vessels, characterized esp by a reddish face

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• plethoric
  adjective
• plethorically
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• plethoras
  plural

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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

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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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

plethora plethoras

Those titles are among the plethora of international and art-house films on the streamer.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026

Significantly, despite the plethora of headlines about bond yields, volatility markets are not yet concerned, Bowler writes.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 10, 2026

Blumenfield said there is “a plethora of information including ecological and biological reports, insights from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, and years of evidence from neighbors” that the golf course is habitat for mountain lions.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2026

The plethora of portraiture was part of Elizabeth’s campaign to both rehabilitate her mother’s image and strengthen her own claims to the throne.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 22, 2026

There is a plethora of evidence regarding the critical role that the arts play in children’s lives and learning.

From "Music and the Child" by Natalie Sarrazin

Oxen are fattened into plethoras to encourage agriculture, and men of station dress like grooms, and bet like blacklegs, to keep up the breed of horses.

From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 328, February, 1843 by Various

These plethoras of all human vitality concentrated in a single head; the world mounting to the brain of one man,—this would be mortal to civilization were it to last.

From Les Misérables by Isabel Florence Hapgood

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Related Words

• deluge
• excess
• glut
• overabundance
• plenty
• profusion
• surfeit

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