In the context of numeric naming systems for

powers of ten In mathematics, a power of 10 is any of the integer powers of the number ten; in other words, ten multiplied by itself a certain number of times (when the power is a positive integer). By definition, the number one is a power (the zeroth power ...

, myriad is the quantity ten thousand (

10,000 10,000 (ten thousand) is the natural number following 9,999 and preceding 10,001. Name Many languages have a specific word for this number: in Ancient Greek it is (the etymological root of the word myriad in English), in Aramaic , in Hebre ...

). Idiomatically, in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

, ''myriad'' is an adjective used to mean that a group of things has indefinitely large quantity. ''Myriad'' derives from the

ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

for ten thousand () and is used with this meaning in

literal translation Literal translation, direct translation, or word-for-word translation is the translation of a text done by translating each word separately without analysing how the words are used together in a phrase or sentence. In translation theory, anoth ...

s from

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

Sinospheric The Sinosphere, also known as the Chinese cultural sphere, East Asian cultural sphere, or the Sinic world, encompasses multiple countries in East Asia and Southeast Asia that were historically heavily influenced by Chinese culture. The Sinosph ...

languages (

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, people from the Korean peninsula or of Korean descent * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Korean **Korean dialects **See also: North–South differences in t ...

, and

Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overseas Vietnamese, Vietnamese people living outside Vietna ...

), and in reference to ancient

Greek numerals Greek numerals, also known as Ionic, Ionian, Milesian, or Alexandrian numerals, is a numeral system, system of writing numbers using the letters of the Greek alphabet. In modern Greece, they are still used for ordinal number (linguistics), ordi ...

. The term ''myriad'' is also used in the form "a myriad" for a 100 km × 100 km square (10,000 km²) the grid size of the British

Ordnance Survey National Grid The Ordnance Survey National Grid reference system (OSGB), also known as British National Grid (BNG), is a system of geographic grid references, distinct from latitude and longitude, whereby any location in Great Britain can be described in t ...

and the US

Military Grid Reference System The Military Grid Reference System (MGRS)
Datums, Ellipsoids, Grids, and Grid Reference Sy ...

. It contains 100 hectads.

History

The

Aegean numerals Aegean numbers was an additive Sign-value notation, sign-value numeral system used by the Minoan civilization, Minoan and Mycenaean Greece, Mycenaean civilizations. They are attested in the Linear A and Linear B scripts. They may have survived ...

of the

Minoan The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age culture which was centered on the island of Crete. Known for its monumental architecture and Minoan art, energetic art, it is often regarded as the first civilization in Europe. The ruins of the Minoan pa ...

and

Mycenaean civilization Mycenaean Greece (or the Mycenaean civilization) was the last phase of the Bronze Age in ancient Greece, spanning the period from approximately 1750 to 1050 BC.. It represents the first advanced and distinctively Greek civilization in mainla ...

s included a symbol composed of a circle with four dashes 𐄫 to denote tens of thousands. In classical

, myriad was written as a capital mu: Μ. To distinguish this numeral from letters, it was sometimes given an

overbar An overline, overscore, or overbar, is a typographical feature of a horizontal line drawn immediately above the text. In old mathematical notation, an overline was called a '' vinculum'', a notation for grouping symbols which is expressed in ...

: . Multiples were written above this sign. For example is 4,582×10,000 or 45,820,000. The etymology of ''myriad'' is uncertain. It has been variously connected to

PIE A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), fruit preserves ( jam tart ...

''*meu-'' ("damp") in reference to the waves of the sea and to Greek ''myrmex'' (, "ant") in reference to their swarms. In his ''

Sand Reckoner ''The Sand Reckoner'' (, ''Psammites'') is a work by Archimedes, an Ancient Greek mathematician of the 3rd century BC, in which he set out to determine an upper bound for the number of grains of sand that fit into the universe. In order to do ...

'',

Archimedes Archimedes of Syracuse ( ; ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Greek mathematics, mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and Invention, inventor from the ancient city of Syracuse, Sicily, Syracuse in History of Greek and Hellenis ...

used "myriad myriad" (, one hundred million) as the basis for a numeration system of large powers of ten, which he used to count grains of sand.

In English

''Myriad'' may be used either as an

adjective An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...

(there are myriad people outside) or as a

noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...

(there is a myriad of people outside),Merriam-Webster Online.
Myriad
. 2013. Accessed 1 November 2013. but there are small differences. The former might imply that it is a diverse group of people whereas the latter usually does not. Despite its usually meaning (a large, unspecified quantity), ''myriad'' is sometimes used in English to mean ten thousand although usually restricted to translation from other languages like

and

where quantities are grouped by 10,000. Such use permits the translator to remain closer to the original text and avoid unwieldy mentions of "tens of thousands". For example, "the original number of the crews supplied by the several nations I find to have been twenty-four myriads" and "What is the distance between one bridge and another? Twelve myriads of

parasang The parasang, also known as a farsakh (from Arabic), is a historical Iranian peoples, Iranian unit of Walking distance measure, walking distance, the length of which varied according to terrain and speed of travel. The European equivalent is the ...

s".

In European languages

Most European languages include a variation of ''myriad'' with a similar meaning to the English word. Additionally, the

prefix A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Particularly in the study of languages, a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the word to which it is affixed. Prefixes, like other affixes, can b ...

myria- Myria- (symbol my) is a now obsolete decimal prefix, decimal metric prefix denoting a factor of 104 (ten thousand). It originates from the Greek language, Greek μύριοι (''mýrioi'') (myriad). The prefix was part of the original metric syst ...

'' indicating multiplication times ten thousand (×10⁴), was part of the original

metric system The metric system is a system of measurement that standardization, standardizes a set of base units and a nomenclature for describing relatively large and small quantities via decimal-based multiplicative unit prefixes. Though the rules gover ...

adopted by

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

in 1795. Although it was not retained after the 11th CGPM conference in 1960, ''

myriameter The following are examples of orders of magnitude for different lengths. Overview Detailed list To help compare different orders of magnitude, the following list describes various lengths between 1.6 \times 10^ metres and 10^metres. ...

'' is sometimes still encountered as a translation of the

Scandinavian mile A Scandinavian mile ( Norwegian and , , ) is a unit of length common in Norway and Sweden, to a lesser extent in Finland, but not Denmark. Today, it is standardised as 1 being , but it had different values in the past. The word is derived fr ...

(

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

& Norwegian: ''mil'') of , or in some classifications of wavelengths as the adjective '' myriametric''. The ''

myriagramme The myriagram () is a former French and metric unit of mass equal to 10,000 grams ('' myriad'' being the Greek word for ten thousand). Although never as widely used as the kilogram, the myriagram was employed during the 19th century as a replacem ...

'' (10 kg) was a French approximation of the

avoirdupois Avoirdupois (; abbreviated avdp.) is a measurement system of weights that uses pounds and ounces as units. It was first commonly used in the 13th century AD and was updated in 1959. In 1959, by international agreement, the definitions of the p ...

''quartier'' of and the ''

myriaton The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton in the United States to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the shor ...

'' appears in

Isaac Asimov Isaac Asimov ( ; – April 6, 1992) was an Russian-born American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. H ...

's ''

Foundation Foundation(s) or The Foundation(s) may refer to: Common uses * Foundation (cosmetics), a skin-coloured makeup cream applied to the face * Foundation (engineering), the element of a structure which connects it to the ground, and transfers loads f ...

'' novel trilogy. In

modern Greek Modern Greek (, or , ), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the language sometimes referred to ...

, the word "myriad" is rarely used to denote 10,000, but a million is ''ekatommyrio'' (, ''lit.'' 'hundred myriad') and a thousand million is ''disekatommyrio'' (, ''lit.'' 'twice hundred myriad').

In East Asian languages

East Asia East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

, the traditional numeral systems of

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

Korea Korea is a peninsular region in East Asia consisting of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and smaller islands. Since the end of World War II in 1945, it has been politically Division of Korea, divided at or near the 38th parallel north, 3 ...

, and

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

are all

decimal The decimal numeral system (also called the base-ten positional numeral system and denary or decanary) is the standard system for denoting integer and non-integer numbers. It is the extension to non-integer numbers (''decimal fractions'') of th ...

-based but grouped into ten thousands rather than thousands. The

character Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to Theoph ...

for myriad is in

traditional A tradition is a system of beliefs or behaviors (folk custom) passed down within a group of people or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examp ...

script and in simplified form in both

mainland China "Mainland China", also referred to as "the Chinese mainland", is a Geopolitics, geopolitical term defined as the territory under direct administration of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War. In addit ...

and

; its pronunciation varies between languages (

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

: ''wàn'',

Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka-speaking Chinese, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas, are a southern Han Chinese subgroup whose principal settlements and ancestral homes are dispersed widely across the provinces of southern China ...

: ''wan''⁵, Minnan: ''bān'',

Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...

: ''maan''⁶,

and

: ''man'',

: ''vạn'', Thai: หมื่น ''muen'' and Khmer: ម៉ឺន ''meun''). Because of this grouping into fours, higher orders of numbers are provided by the powers of 10,000 rather than 1,000: In China, 10,000² was in ancient texts but is now called and sometimes written as 1,0000,0000; 10,000³ is 1,0000,0000,0000 or ; 10,000⁴ is 1,0000,0000,0000,0000 or ; and so on. Conversely, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean generally do not have native words for powers of one thousand: what is called "one million" in English is "100" (100 myriad) in the

Sinosphere The Sinosphere, also known as the Chinese cultural sphere, East Asian cultural sphere, or the Sinic world, encompasses multiple countries in East Asia and Southeast Asia that were historically heavily influenced by Chinese culture. The Sinosph ...

, and "one billion" in English is "" (ten myllion) or "" (ten myriad myriad) in the Sinosphere. Unusually, Vietnam employs its former translation of , ''một triệu'', to mean 1,000,000 rather than the Chinese figure. Similarly, the Chinese government has adapted the word to mean the scientific prefix

mega- Mega is a metric prefix, unit prefix in metric systems of units denoting a factor of one million (106 or 1000000 (number), ). It has the unit symbol M. It was confirmed for use in the International System of Units (SI) in 1960. ''Mega'' comes fro ...

, but transliterations are used instead for

giga- Giga- ( or ) is a unit prefix in the metric system denoting a factor of a short-scale billion or long-scale milliard (109 or 1,000,000,000). It has the symbol G. ''Giga-'' is derived from the Greek word (''gígas''), meaning "giant". The ...

tera- A metric prefix is a unit prefix that precedes a basic unit of measure to indicate a multiple or submultiple of the unit. All metric prefixes used today are decadic. Each prefix has a unique symbol that is prepended to any unit symbol. The pre ...

, and other larger prefixes. This has caused confusion in areas closely related to China such as

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

and

Macau Macau or Macao is a special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). With a population of about people and a land area of , it is the most List of countries and dependencies by p ...

, where is still largely used to mean 10,000³. and are also frequently employed colloquially in expressions,

cliché A cliché ( or ; ) is a saying, idea, or element of an artistic work that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning, novelty, or literal and figurative language, figurative or artistic power, even to the point of now being b ...

s, and ''

chengyu ''Chengyu'' ( zh, t=, s=, first=t, p=chéngyǔ, tr=set phrase) are a type of traditional Chinese idiomatic expressions, most of which consist of four Chinese characters. ''Chengyu'' were widely used in Literary Chinese and are still common in ...

'' (idioms) in the senses of "vast", "numerous", "numberless", and "infinite". A

skeleton key A skeleton key (also known as a passkey) is a type of master keying, master key in which the serrated edge has been removed in such a way that it can open numerous Lock and key, locks, most commonly the warded lock. The term derives from th ...

is a ("myriad-use key"), the

emperor The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/grand empress dowager), or a woman who rules ...

was the "lord of myriad

chariot A chariot is a type of vehicle similar to a cart, driven by a charioteer, usually using horses to provide rapid Propulsion, motive power. The oldest known chariots have been found in burials of the Sintashta culture in modern-day Chelyabinsk O ...

s" (), the

Great Wall The Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand Li (unit), ''li'' long wall") is a series of fortifications in China. They were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection agains ...

is called ("Myriad-

mile The mile, sometimes the international mile or statute mile to distinguish it from other miles, is a imperial unit, British imperial unit and United States customary unit of length; both are based on the older English unit of Unit of length, le ...

Long Wall"),

Zhu Xi Zhu Xi ( zh, c=朱熹; ; October 18, 1130April 23, 1200), formerly romanized Chu Hsi, was a Chinese philosopher, historian, politician, poet, and calligrapher of the Southern Song dynasty. As a leading figure in the development of Neo-Confuci ...

's statement ("the moon reflects in myriad rivers") had the sense of supporting greater

empiricism In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological view which holds that true knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience and empirical evidence. It is one of several competing views within epistemology, along ...

Chinese philosophy Chinese philosophy (Simplified Chinese characters, simplified Chinese: 中国哲学; Traditional Chinese characters, traditional Chinese: 中國哲學) refers to the philosophical traditions that originated and developed within the historical ...

, and Ha Qiongwen's popular 1959

propaganda poster A poster is a large sheet that is placed either on a public space to promote something or on a wall as decoration. Typically, posters include both typography, textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or w ...

, meaning "Long live

Chairman The chair, also chairman, chairwoman, or chairperson, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the gro ...

Mao", literally reads as " ayChairman Mao

ive to be Ive or IVE may refer to: Music * Ive (group), a South Korean girl group * I've Sound (aka "I've"), a Japanese musical group People * Ive (given name), a Croatian and Slovenian given name * Bert Ive (1875–1939), British-born Australian cinema ...

10,000 years old". Its literary use may thus mean something huge and plentiful.

In old Turkic

A similar term is the

Old Turkic Old Siberian Turkic, generally known as East Old Turkic and often shortened to Old Turkic, was a Siberian Turkic language spoken around East Turkistan and Mongolia. It was first discovered in inscriptions originating from the Second Turkic Kh ...

word '' tümän'', whose variant forms remain in use for "ten thousand" among modern

Mongolian Mongolian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Mongolia, a country in Asia * Mongolian people, or Mongols * Bogd Khanate of Mongolia, the government of Mongolia, 1911–1919 and 1921–1924 * Mongolian language * Mongolian alphabet * ...

Turkish Turkish may refer to: * Something related to Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities in the former Ottoman Empire * The w ...

. According to Sir

Gerard Clauson Sir Gerard Leslie Makins Clauson (28 April 1891 – 1 May 1974) was an English civil servant, businessman, and Orientalist best known for his studies of the Turkic languages. He was born in Malta. The eldest son of Major Sir John Eugene Clauso ...

(1891–1974), it was likely borrowed from

Tokharian The Tocharian (sometimes ''Tokharian'') languages ( ; ), also known as the ''Arśi-Kuči'', Agnean-Kuchean or Kuchean-Agnean languages, are an extinct branch of the Indo-European language family spoken by inhabitants of the Tarim Basin, the To ...

''tmān'', which may have been borrowed in turn from

Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese language, Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones ...

''tman'' 萬 > ''wan''.

In Hebrew

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

the word רבבה (pronounced "revava") means 10,000, and is the highest number represented in Hebrew. Its sources go back to biblical times.

Genesis Genesis may refer to: Religion * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of humankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Bo ...

24 60 Its usage became very rare after the 19th century. The term 60 ריבוא ("60 ribo"), which literally stands for 600,000 is used several times in the bible to denote "a very large undefinitive number".

References

{{Reflist Integers Units of amount 10000 (number) Quantity