Threescores

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A grouping or quantity equivalent to sixty, often used in a historical context to indicate a specific measure of age or count
2. An expression denoting the total of three times twenty, frequently employed in literature or speeches to emphasize numerical significance
3. A term representing the sum of three decades, typically used in older texts to convey a sense of time or duration

Etymology: "Threescores" is the plural of "threescore," which is simply "three" and "score" put together. A score is twenty, so threescore means three twenties, or sixty. The compound is old and transparent, and it is a little surprising that the stated meaning here, "three decades," is not what the word has ever counted. Threescore is sixty, and the same arithmetic gives threescores as a plural of sixty-sized groups, so the word tracks a count of twenties rather than a span of ten years. The most famous use is in the Bible, where the psalmist's "threescore years and ten" gives the span of a human life, that is, seventy years. That idiom explains why the word is so often tied to a sense of duration: it stands for a lifetime, not a decade.