MILLENNIUM (millennia)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected form: millennia   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does millennium mean? 

• MILLENNIUM (noun)
  The noun MILLENNIUM has 3 senses:

1. a span of 1000 years

2. (New Testament) in Revelations it is foretold that those faithful to Jesus will reign with Jesus over the earth for a thousand years; the meaning of these words have been much debated; some denominations (e.g. Jehovah's Witnesses) expect it to be a thousand years of justice and peace and happiness

3. the 1000th anniversary (or the celebration of it)

  Familiarity information: MILLENNIUM used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MILLENNIUM (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A span of 1000 years

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Synonyms:

millenary; millennium

Hypernyms ("millennium" is a kind of...):

period; period of time; time period (an amount of time)

Meronyms (parts of "millennium"):

century (a period of 100 years)

Derivation:

millenary (relating to or consisting of 1000)

millennial; millennian (relating to a millennium or span of a thousand years)

Sense 2

Meaning:

(New Testament) in Revelations it is foretold that those faithful to Jesus will reign with Jesus over the earth for a thousand years; the meaning of these words have been much debated; some denominations (e.g. Jehovah's Witnesses) expect it to be a thousand years of justice and peace and happiness

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Hypernyms ("millennium" is a kind of...):

doctrine; ism; philosophical system; philosophy; school of thought (a belief (or system of beliefs) accepted as authoritative by some group or school)

Domain category:

New Testament (the collection of books of the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, the Pauline and other epistles, and Revelation; composed soon after Christ's death; the second half of the Christian Bible)

Derivation:

millenary (of or relating to the doctrine of the millennium)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The 1000th anniversary (or the celebration of it)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Synonyms:

millenary; millennium

Hypernyms ("millennium" is a kind of...):

anniversary; day of remembrance (the date on which an event occurred in some previous year (or the celebration of it))

Derivation:

millenary (relating to or consisting of 1000)

millennial (relating to a millennium or span of a thousand years)

 Context examples 

Clay minerals have been sought for medicinal purposes for millennia.

(New answer to MRSA, other 'superbug' infections: clay minerals?, NSF)

Over millennia, the field weakened, partially shifted, stabilized again, then finally reversed to the orientation we know today.

(Earth's last magnetic field reversal took far longer than once thought, National Science Foundation)

While wood has been used in buildings for millennia, its mechanical properties have not, as yet, measured up to all modern building standards for major superstructures.

(Revealing the nanostructure of wood could help raise height limits for wooden skyscrapers, University of Cambridge)

The team of researchers not only improved on the amount of energy produced and stored, they managed to reactivate a process in the algae that has been dormant for millennia.

(Scientists pioneer a new way to turn sunlight into fuel, University of Cambridge)

Said peptides have the same activity as opioid analgesics (drugs for treating intense pain, such as morphine), used for millennia for treating pain.

(Scientists make white blood cells to alleviate pain, instead of producing it, during tissue inflammation, University of Granada)

Animals have evolved over millennia to use camouflage as a lifesaving way to dodge predators - so what happens to them when, over the course of just a few decades, their environments change?

(Twenty-one species adapted to disappear in the snow. Then, the snow disappeared, National Science Foundation)

Scientists have sequenced 15 ancient genomes spanning from Alaska to Patagonia and were able to track the movements of the first humans as they spread across the Americas at astonishing speed during the last Ice Age, and also how they interacted with each other in the following millennia.

(Ancient DNA analysis unlocks secrets of Ice Age tribes in the Americas, University of Cambridge)

The twins pranced behind, feeling that the millennium was at hand, for everyone was so busy with the newcomers that they were left to revel at their own sweet will, and you may be sure they made the most of the opportunity.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

In three studies of the biological carbon pump — the process by which carbon dioxide is produced by photosynthetic algae in the surface ocean and transferred to the seafloor and stored for millennia — biological oceanographer Mike Stukel and his collaborators found that microscopic zooplankton play critical, often underappreciated roles in transporting and holding carbon.

(Research provides new view of the critical role of plankton in marine carbon storage, National Science Foundation)

These studies allow us to affirm that the construction of megalithic landscapes is probably one of the most long‑lasting and powerful legacies of past societies and that, for millennia, these monuments were the scene for social interaction and the encounter with supernatural powers.

(The necropolis of El Barranquete in Níjar (Almería), proven to have been used for funerary rituals throughout the Bronze Age, University of Granada)