A decade is ten days or ten years? The modern meaning of this word

The concept of the decade in the modern world is rare, but you need to know it in order to freely navigate in time and have an idea of the duration of socially important events. A decade is a period of time that lasts ten days or ten years. From signs and announcements you can find out about the forthcoming decade of development of languages, at work stumble upon a report on the spent decade of psychology, and at school to get acquainted with the analysis of the decade of the natural-mathematical cycle.

Decade is a concept known from ancient times

The word "decade" came to us from antiquity and then literally meant "ten". This concept was present in ancient culture. Later it was transferred from Latin and Greek into modern European languages. Thus, the meaning of the word "ten" is preserved, and it is not by chance that the word "ten" of the Russian language is consonant with the "decade", the word-borrowing from the Greek language.

European languages are also no exception. Despite the difference in writing and some differences in sound, the common Indo-European root, from which the word "decade" was formed, can be identified in many modern languages of Europe. In German, "ten" is zehn, in English ten, in French - dix.

The origin of the decade and today's use of this concept

The Pythagoreans considered the number 10 magical and attached great importance to it. In addition, people have always understood what to consider more convenient, taking as a basis the decimal number system.

Today the month is divided into weeks, and the basis of this division is number 7. The decade is the third of the month, that is, it implies a time interval of ten days. During the Great French Revolution, it was decided to introduce a calendar using a ten-day unit of measurement. This greatly simplified and simplified the perception of time, because it is easier to break a month into ten units than seven.

But still a decade is how much: ten days or ten years? In modern Russian, a decade is most often used in the first sense. When there is a decade in the speech, it usually means one of three decades of a certain month (for example, the first decade of March, the second decade of September, etc.) But in principle, it is also possible to define such a notion as the decade of the year. To calculate it, you need to divide the total number of days in a year (365 or 366 days) by 10, get the total number of decades (36.5 or 36.6), and highlight the year of interest.

So, despite the relatively rare use of this unit of time, it assumes certain amenities for those who are engaged in mathematics, physics, electronics, economics, operates with statistical and any other numerical data. Knowledge of the term is necessary for every person for good orientation in the realities of the modern world.