Word of the Day Archive
Saturday April 7, 2001
myriad \MIR-ee-uhd\ , adjective:
1. Consisting of a very great, but indefinite, number; as, myriad stars.
2. Composed of numerous diverse elements or aspects.
noun:
1. The number of ten thousand; ten thousand persons or things. (Chiefly in reference to the Greek numeral system, or in translations from Greek or Latin).
2. An immense number; a very great many; an indefinitely large number.
Home is a place to which one is attached by myriad habits of thought and behavior--culturally acquired, of course, yet in time they become so intimately woven into everyday existence that they seem primordial and the essence of one's being.
-- Yi-Fu Tuan, Escapism
Hawks and condors hunted all along the river, while myriad other bird species including cuckoos, owls, vireos, and woodpeckers inhabited the willow groves that flourished along its course.
-- Blake Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River
The myriad mind of Shakespeare.
-- H. Reed, Lectures on the British Poets
The catastrophic melting of Earth's surface is just one out of a myriad of events that are waiting to occur as the universe and its contents grow older.
-- Fred Adams and Greg Laughlin, The Five Ages of the Universe
Myriad is from Greek myrias, myriad-, "ten thousand; a myriad," from myrios, "numberless; countless; ten thousand."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for myriad
