thousand

[ thou-zuhnd ]

noun

, plural thou·sands, (as after a numeral) thou·sand.

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 thousand'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.

adjective

1. amounting to 1000 in number.

thousand

/ 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

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of thousand¹

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of thousand¹

Old English thūsend; related to Old Saxon thūsind, Old High German thūsunt, Old Norse thūsund

Idioms and Phrases

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

Example Sentences

This third-party delivery ecosystem has caused death by a thousand cuts for restaurants for the past two decades.

From Eater

There are all of these hundreds of thousands or millions of posts that might not get that many interactions but collectively make up a lot of misinformation.

From FiveThirtyEight

Then an unexpectedly large wave basically broke on me, and the wall of water felt as if a thousand tiny needles had been shot into my face.

From Outside Online

Remember, though, that it will be supporting your upper half for thousands of hours, so it’s worth investing a little time and energy into choosing the right one.

From Popular-Science

Two-hundred forty-five thousand, when you’re still more than 9 million in the hole.

From Washington Post

Well over a thousand holes in, I average less than four strokes per hole.

From The Daily Beast

It cost several thousand dollars and a high-powered former district attorney to get the charges dropped.

From The Daily Beast

Neither could her three-week, multi-thousand dollar stay, which was supposed to be a recovery period.

From The Daily Beast

One person who dialed in has “a pretty big Twitter following,” Goff said, “several thousand.”

From The Daily Beast

Two years into an Arctic expedition, they were forced to abandon ship a thousand miles north of Siberia.

From The Daily Beast

It contains above eighty thousand houses, and about six hundred thousand inhabitants.

From Project Gutenberg

The garrison of the town and fortress was nearly three thousand strong.

From Project Gutenberg

There were two battalions, together about a thousand men; and they brought a field-piece with them.

From Project Gutenberg

And it was no light task, then, for six hundred men to keep the peace on a thousand miles of frontier.

From Project Gutenberg

Ten thousand of the best troops in Mexico entered Texas and were shortly to be followed by ten thousand more.

From Project Gutenberg

More About Thousand

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.

Where does thousand come from?

The first records of the word thousand come from before the year 900. It comes from the Old English thūsend.

A thousand is what we call a nice, round number—which basically means it ends in 0. We use round numbers like 100 and 1,000 in estimates instead of giving more specific amounts. This means that a thousand is a very commonly used word. It’s also commonly used in exaggerated amounts, as in I have like a thousand text messages. However, when people really want to exaggerate, they usually go bigger, like eighty billion.

Did you know ... ?

What are some other forms related to thousand? 

• thousands (plural)
• thousandth (adjective, noun)

What are some words that share a root or word element with thousand? 

• thousandfold

What are some words that often get used in discussing thousand?

• ten
• hundred
• million
• dollars
• miles
• years
• millennium
• people
• several

How is thousand used in real life?

Thousand is very commonly used in all kinds of contexts. It’s often used in exaggerations about how much of something there is.

More than a thousand people attended our Missouri chapter meeting last night. #ExpectUs

To attend a meeting in your community, text READY to 64433. https://t.co/pcR9aBoqPl

— Moms Demand Action (@MomsDemand) March 2, 2018

On Spotify, if your music ranks highly for a generic search term like "relaxing" or "white noise," you can accumulate enough listens to steadily make hundreds, in some cases thousands, of dollars a month with minimal effort. https://t.co/SRHUt2BP38

— OneZero (@ozm) September 22, 2020

You can apologize a thousand times, but if you don't change your actions, your words are meaningless

— Boonaa Mohammed (@boonaamohammed) September 16, 2020

 

 

Try using thousand!

Is thousand used correctly in the following sentence?

I ordered a pack of a thousand so we wouldn’t run out.