Looking for a word
December 14, 2006 11:47 AM Subscribe
Is there a word that refers to 5 year periods as decade refers to 10 year periods (besides half decade)?
I'd go with quinquennial, or quinquennium.
posted by No Mutant Enemy at 11:54 AM on December 14, 2006
posted by No Mutant Enemy at 11:54 AM on December 14, 2006
Response by poster: Fantastic. Thanks.
What did you search for? I tried various things like "uncommon words", but came up empty.
posted by notcostello at 11:57 AM on December 14, 2006
What did you search for? I tried various things like "uncommon words", but came up empty.
posted by notcostello at 11:57 AM on December 14, 2006
Pentade comes to mind as a first-order guess. It shows up on google alongside decade in scholarly writing, but it isn't in Merriam-Webster or Wiktionary. Anyone with OED access care to comment?
posted by leapfrog at 12:00 PM on December 14, 2006
posted by leapfrog at 12:00 PM on December 14, 2006
I found Lustrum under wikipedia's "units of time" entry.
posted by suasponte at 12:01 PM on December 14, 2006
posted by suasponte at 12:01 PM on December 14, 2006
Mine was just a guess based on knowing "biennium" as the term for a two-year period.
posted by Doofus Magoo at 12:07 PM on December 14, 2006
posted by Doofus Magoo at 12:07 PM on December 14, 2006
Response by poster: Pentad is the way to spell it at Dictionary.com
posted by notcostello at 12:10 PM on December 14, 2006
posted by notcostello at 12:10 PM on December 14, 2006
Best answer: I'd go with lustrum. It may or may not be "obsolete," but it's in common enough use that I knew it off the top of my head; the last OED citation for quinquennium is from 1879. On the other hand, if you know any Latin quinquennium is transparent, whereas lustrum is not. (Two distinct words for 'five-year period'—is English a great language or what?)
posted by languagehat at 12:20 PM on December 14, 2006
posted by languagehat at 12:20 PM on December 14, 2006
Best answer: Oops, I overlooked pentad, and while that normally means 'group of five things,' it can indeed mean 'period of five years':
1880 J. D. WHITNEY Climatic Changes vii. 337 The means of the last two pentads, 1866-70 and 1871-75, were almost exactly the same as the grand mean. 1927 Geogr. Rev. 17 153 Quijano has listed the normal values of annual rainfall for 36 older stations alongside the means for this pentad. 1978 Nature 26 Jan. 322/2 South of lat 45° S, however, they conclude that average annual temperatures increased between the 1960-64 and 1970-74 pentads. 1991 Sunday Mail Mag. (Brisbane) 24 Feb. 18 (caption) ‘What do you call a series of five years?’ ‘A pentad.’
Three distinct words! What a language!
posted by languagehat at 12:23 PM on December 14, 2006
1880 J. D. WHITNEY Climatic Changes vii. 337 The means of the last two pentads, 1866-70 and 1871-75, were almost exactly the same as the grand mean. 1927 Geogr. Rev. 17 153 Quijano has listed the normal values of annual rainfall for 36 older stations alongside the means for this pentad. 1978 Nature 26 Jan. 322/2 South of lat 45° S, however, they conclude that average annual temperatures increased between the 1960-64 and 1970-74 pentads. 1991 Sunday Mail Mag. (Brisbane) 24 Feb. 18 (caption) ‘What do you call a series of five years?’ ‘A pentad.’
Three distinct words! What a language!
posted by languagehat at 12:23 PM on December 14, 2006
FWIW, "lustrum" is a contemporary commonly used word in Dutch, but only when referring to fifth anniversaries [of an event X].
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 3:22 PM on December 14, 2006
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 3:22 PM on December 14, 2006
wow, rob511, Yahoo Answers is not terribly impressive!
Q: Is there a word for half a decade?
A: 5 years
A: 5 years lol
A: 5 years
A: decade is 10, half a decade is 5
A: Don't know but it would be nice to call it a Lemonade.:-)
As for this queston, you might be interested to know that in electrical engineering, a decade is an increase by a factor of 10. For example power as a measure of frequency may be measured in decibels per decade. There is also an octave, which means an increase by a factor of two (which means exactly the same thing in music: 440 Hz and 880 Hz are one octave apart - both notes sound like 'A').
But to my knowledge there are no other similar terms that you could perhaps co-opt for a five period.
posted by PercussivePaul at 5:07 PM on December 14, 2006
Q: Is there a word for half a decade?
A: 5 years
A: 5 years lol
A: 5 years
A: decade is 10, half a decade is 5
A: Don't know but it would be nice to call it a Lemonade.:-)
As for this queston, you might be interested to know that in electrical engineering, a decade is an increase by a factor of 10. For example power as a measure of frequency may be measured in decibels per decade. There is also an octave, which means an increase by a factor of two (which means exactly the same thing in music: 440 Hz and 880 Hz are one octave apart - both notes sound like 'A').
But to my knowledge there are no other similar terms that you could perhaps co-opt for a five period.
posted by PercussivePaul at 5:07 PM on December 14, 2006
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Doofus Magoo at 11:51 AM on December 14, 2006