Thousand

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /ˈθaÊŠz(É™)nd/
• US IPA: /ˈθaÊŠz(É™)nd/, ˈθaʊ̯z(ɪ̈)nd
• Hyphenation: thou + sand

Alternative forms

• Arabic numerals: 1000 see for numerical forms in other scripts
• Roman numerals: M
• ISO prefix: kilo-
• Exponential notation: 10

Origin

From Middle English thousend, thusand, from Old English þūsend ("thousand"), from Proto-Germanic *þūsundī ("thousand"). Cognate with Scots thousand ("thousand"), Saterland Frisian duusend ("thousand"), West Frisian tûzen ("thousand"), Dutch duizend ("thousand"), German tausend ("thousand"), Danish tusind ("thousand"), Swedish tusen ("thousand"), Icelandic þúsund ("thousand").

Full definition of thousand

Numeral

1. (cardinal) A numerical value equal to 1,000 = 10 × 100 = 10³The company earned fifty thousand dollars last month.Many thousands of people came to the conference.

Usage notes

Unlike cardinal numerals up to ninety-nine, the word thousand is a noun like dozen and needs a determiner to function as a numeral.

a thousand men
one thousand men
the thousand men

compare a dozen men
one dozen men
the dozen men

compare ten men
the ten men

Thousand can be used also in plurals. It doesn't take -s when preceded by a determiner.

two thousand men
some thousand men

thousands of men
dozens of thousands of men

Synonyms

• (numerical) a thousand, one thousand

Derived terms

• hundreds and thousands, mother of thousands, Thousand Islands, thousandfold, thousandth, thousandaire

Anagrams

• handouts
• hands out