Decade

For other senses of this word, see decade (disambiguation).

A decade is a period of ten years. The word is derived (via French) from the Late Latin decadem, accusative of decas, from Greek decas, from deca. The other words for spans of years also come from Latin: lustrum (5 years), century (100 years), millennium (1000 years).

Although any period of ten years is a decade, a convenient and frequently referenced interval is based on the tens digit of the calendar year, as in using 1960s to represent the decade from 1960 to 1969. Often, for brevity, only the tens part is mentioned (60s or sixties), although this may leave it uncertain which century is meant. These references are frequently used to encapsulate pop culture or other widespread phenomena that dominated such a decade, as in The Great Depression of the 1930s.

Some writers like to point out that since the common calendar starts from the year 1, its first full decade contained the years from 1 to 10, the second decade from 11 to 20, and so on. The interval from the year 2001 to 2010 could thus be called the 201st decade, using ordinal numbers. However, contrary to practices in referencing centuries, ordinal references to decades are quite uncommon.

In addition to the interpretations noted above, a decade may refer to an arbitrary span of 10 years. For example, the statement "during his last decade, Mozart explored chromatic harmony to a degree rare at the time," merely refers to the last 10 years of Mozart's life without regard to which calendar years are encompassed.

Thus, an unqualified reference to, for example, "the decade" or "this decade" may strictly speaking have multiple interpretations, and one must consider whether the context is, for example, a cultural reference, an ordinal reference, or some other context.

See also

• List of decades
• Century
• Millennium

See also

• http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=decade