decade

A decade is a period of ten years. When talking about a person’s life or when talking about history, this word is very useful.

• I was born in the 1960s. That’s five decades ago.
• Patricia attended elementary school and high school in the 1970s. That’s four decades ago.
• The 1980s was a fun decade.
• The year 2001 began a decade of war and conflict around the world.
• It’s been over two decades since Tigist has visited her home country of Ethiopia.
• It will take at least another decade or more before human beings are ready to visit Mars.
• The decade we are living through right now is the 2010s.
• The next decade will be the 2020s.
• Ten decades are equivalent to a century. (A century is 100 years long.)

The Roman numeral for 10 is an X. Sometimes you will see years written in Roman numerals which resemble letters of the alphabet. For example, the year 2016 is written like this: MMXVI.

The M represents 1000 years. The X represents ten years. The V represents five years. The I represents one year. If you add them all together, you get 2016.

= 10 years

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March 25, 2016