Decade

Inspired by the French republican calendar, thinking here in 10 days planning

A decade is a period of ten years.

Decade(s), Decad, Decadal or The Decade may also refer to:

Groups of ten

• Decad (Sumerian texts), a standard sequence of ten scribal training compositions
• Decade (log scale), a factor of 10 difference between two numbers
• Cosmological decade, a division of the lifetime of the cosmos
• Decade, in the French Republican calendar, a period of 10 days
• Decade, in the Braille writing system, a grouping of 10 characters
• Decade, any of the repeated sequences of a rosary

Arts and entertainment

Games and toys

• Decade (Beanie Baby), a 2003 bear toy
• Decade (solitaire), a card game
• Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades, a 2008 video game

Music

• Decad (chord) or decachord
• Decade (band), a British rock band 2009–2018

Albums

• A Decade, by Our Lady Peace, 2006
• Decade (Duran Duran album), 1989
• Decade (Neil Young album), 1977
• Decade (The Veer Union album), a studio album, 2016
  • Decade (Acoustic Sessions), an EP by the Veer Union, 2016
  • Decade: History of Our Evolution, a compilation album by the Veer Union, 2018
• Decade (Live at the El Mocambo), by Silverstein, 2010
• Decade 1994–2004, by AZ
• Decade: "...but wait it gets worse", by Sticky Fingaz, 2003
• Decade: Ten Years of Fierce Panda, 2004
• Decade, by Israel Houghton, 2012
• Decade, by Kerry Livgren, 1992
• Decade, by Rabbit in the Moon, 2007
• Decade, by Waltari, 1998
• Decade 1983–1993, by the Choirboys, 1993
• Decade 1998–2002 and Decade 2003–2007, by Dir En Grey, 2017
• Decade: Lift Up Your Eyes, by Planetshakers, 2005
• The Decade, an EP by Alesana, 2014
• Decades (David Palfreyman and Nicholas Pegg album), 2017
• Decades (Nightwish album), 2018
  • Decades: World Tour, a concert tour by Nightwish, 2018
  • Decades: Live in Buenos Aires, by Nightwish, 2019

Songs

• "Decades", by Joy Division from Closer, 1980
• "Decades", by Joe Walsh from Songs for a Dying Planet, 1992

Theatre and television

• Decade (play), a 2011 British play marking the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks
• Decades (TV network), an American television network
• Kamen Rider Decade, a 2009 Japanese tokusatsu series

Science

• Decadal survey, a report prioritizing specific goals of a scientific field for the coming decade
• Deep Earth Carbon Degassing Project (DECADE)

Sports

• The Decade, a professional wrestling stable 2013–2016
• Decade, a trick in Flatland BMX

See also

• 10 years (disambiguation)
• Century (disambiguation) (a period of 100 years)
• All pages with titles containing decade
• All pages with titles containing decadal

For other uses, see Decade (disambiguation).

A decade (from Ancient Greek δεκάς (dekas) 'a group of ten') is a period of ten years. Decades may describe any ten-year period, such as those of a person's life, or refer to specific groupings of calendar years.

Usage

Any period of ten years is a "decade". For example, the statement that "during his last decade, Mozart explored chromatic harmony to a degree rare at the time" merely refers to the last ten years of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's life without regard to which calendar years are encompassed. Also, 'the first decade' of a person's life begins on the day of their birth and ends at the end of their 10th year of life when they have their 10th birthday; the second decade of life starts with their 11th year of life (during which one is typically still referred to as being "10") and ends at the end of their 20th year of life, on their 20th birthday; similarly, the third decade of life, when one is in one's twenties or 20s, starts with the 21st year of life, and so on, with subsequent decades of life similarly described by referencing the tens digit of one's age.

0-to-9 decade

The most widely used method for denominating decades is to group years based on their shared tens digit, from a year ending in a 0 to a year ending in a 9 – for example, the period from 1960 to 1969 is the 1960s, and the period from 1970 to 1979 is the 1970s. Sometimes, only the tens part is mentioned ('60s or sixties, and '70s or seventies), although this may leave it ambiguous as to which century is meant. However, this method of grouping decades cannot be applied to the decade immediately preceding AD 10, because there was no year 0.

Referring to ten-year periods as decades in this way only became common in the late 19th century. Particularly in the 20th century, 0-to-9 decades came to be referred to with associated nicknames, such as the "Roaring Twenties" (1920s), the "Warring Forties" (1940s), and the "Swinging Sixties" (1960s). This practice is occasionally also applied to decades of earlier centuries; for example, referencing the 1890s as the "Gay Nineties" or "Naughty Nineties".

1-to-0 decade

A rarer approach groups years from the beginning of the AD calendar era to produce successive decades from a year ending in a 1 to a year ending in a 0, with the years 1–10 described as "the 1st decade", years 11–20 "the 2nd decade", and so on; later decades are more usually described as 'the st, nd, rd, or th decade of the st, nd, rd, or th century' (using the strict interpretation of 'century'). For example, "the second decad of the 12th. Cent." [sic]; "The last decade of that century"; "1st decade of the 16th century"; "third decade of the 16th century"; "the first decade of the 18th century". This decade grouping may also be identified explicitly; for example, "1961–1970"; "2001–2010"; "2021–2030". The BC calendar era ended with the year 1 BC and the AD calendar era began the following year, AD 1. There was no year 0.

Usage methods compared

Year	1	2	3	...	9	10	11	12	...	19	20	...	2000	2001	2002	...	2009	2010	2011	2012	...	2019	2020	2021	2022	...	2029	2030
0-to-9 decade	0s					10s					...		2000s					2010s					2020s					...
1-to-0 decade	1st decade of the 1st century						2nd decade of the 1st century					...		1st decade of the 21st century					2nd decade of the 21st century					3rd decade of the 21st century

Public usage of the two methods

A YouGov poll was conducted on December 2, 2019, asking 13,582 adults in the United States, "When do you think the next decade will begin and end?" Results showed that 64% answered that "the next decade" would begin on January 1, 2020, and end on December 31, 2029 (0-to-9 method); 17% answered that "the next decade" would begin on January 1, 2021, and end on December 31, 2030 (1-to-0 method); 19% replied that they did not know.

See also

• List of decades
• Century
• Millennium
• Year

External links

• Definition from Etymology Online