thousand

American  

[thou-zuhnd] / ˈθaʊ zənd /

noun

thousands, plural thousand plural

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 thousand'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.

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adjective

1. amounting to 1000 in number.

thousand British  

/ 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

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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

thousand Idioms  

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

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Usage

What does thousand mean? A thousand is a number equal to 10 times 100. In numerals, it’s 1,000 or 1000. The word thousand is almost always preceded by the word a (as in a thousand, which means the same thing as 1,000) or by another number, as in two thousand (2,000), ten thousand (10,000), or nine hundred ninety-nine thousand (999,000). You wouldn’t say “I have thousand dollars”—you would say “I have a thousand dollars” or “I have one thousand dollars.”In the context of math, the range of numbers between 1,000 and 999,999 is called the thousands (just as the range between 100 and 999 is called the hundreds). In general, the plural form thousands typically refers to a large but unspecified number or amount somewhere in the thousands, as in The repairs will cost thousands of dollars. Generally, this means between 2,000 and 9,999. The term tens of thousands could be used for a higher amount (typically between 10,000 and 99,999). The phrase the thousands can also be used to refer to a large number or amount without giving the exact total, as in I don’t know how many people were at the concert, but it had to be in the thousands. Thousand and thousands are also often used to exaggerate the number or amount of something, as in I heard about a thousand excuses from my students today or I have thousands of things I need to get done. In Roman numerals, the number one thousand is represented by the letter M. Example: There must have been a thousand people playing in the park today.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• thousand
  plural
• thousands
  plural

Etymology

Origin of thousand

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

Example Sentences

Established in 1983, the settlement, illegal under international law, is one of several that encircle Burin, a village of a few thousand people.

From Barron's • Jul. 11, 2026

It isn't easy: they fly at several thousand kilometres an hour and there just aren't enough US-made Patriot air defence missiles in Ukraine to counter them.

From BBC • Jul. 7, 2026

More recently, the Man With The Best Words spun off a thousand memes by saying at a press conference, “Nothing bad can happen; it can only good happen.”

From Salon • Jul. 6, 2026

Symons, the owner of a U.K.-based used-car sales company that specializes in EVs, has found that the batteries that power these cars continue to perform well even after several hundred thousand miles.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jul. 5, 2026

They are then ordered to produce fifteen thousand more within the day, using the ship’s printing press equipment.

From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly