thousand
Americannoun
plural
thousands,plural
thousand-
a cardinal number, 10 times 100.
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a symbol for this number, as 1000 or M.
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thousands. the numbers between 1000 and 999,999, as in referring to an amount of money.
Property damage was in the thousands.
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a great number or amount.
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Also thousand's place
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(in a mixed number) the position of the fourth digit to the left of the decimal point.
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(in a whole number) the position of the fourth digit from the right.
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adjective
noun
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the cardinal number that is the product of 10 and 100 See also number
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a numeral, 1000, 10³, M, etc, representing this number
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(often plural) a very large but unspecified number, amount, or quantity
they are thousands of miles away
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(plural) the numbers 2000–9999
the price of the picture was in the thousands
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the amount or quantity that is one hundred times greater than ten
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something represented by, representing, or consisting of 1000 units
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maths the position containing a digit representing that number followed by three zeros
in 4760, 4 is in the thousand's place
determiner
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amounting to a thousand
a thousand ships
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( as pronoun )
a thousand is hardly enough
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amounting to 1000 times a particular scientific unit
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.
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
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Iran kept hostile forces away from its soil for decades after the 1980-1988 war with Iraq—which killed hundreds of thousands of Iranians, including from chemical weapons deployed by Saddam Hussein.
For many ordinary Iranians, tension had already been high following mass protests in late December triggered by economic hardship that left thousands dead.
From Barron's
Some 10 months into the Islamic revolution, thousands of Iranian students overran the U.S.
Supporters of the development say it generates jobs and tax revenue, while conservationists fear the developments may stifle the very spectacle hundreds of thousands of tourists visit to see each year.
Researchers at The Rockefeller University built the most detailed atlas so far of how aging affects thousands of cell subtypes across 21 mammalian tissues.
From Science Daily
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.
