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Decade vs Generation - What's the difference?

decade | generation |

As nouns the difference between decade and generation

is that decade is a series or group of ten things while generation is the fact of creating something, or bringing something into being; production, creation.

decade

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A series or group of ten things.
  • a decade of soldiers
  • A period of ten years.
  • *
  • The repeated exposure, over decades , to most taxa here treated has resulted in repeated modifications of both diagnoses and discussions, as initial ideas of the various taxa underwent—often repeated—conceptual modification.
  • * {{quote-magazine
  • , year=1979 , date=December , title=Museums , magazine=Texas Monthly , volume=7 , issue=12 , page=22 citation , passage=Thru May: 1920s — The Decade That Roared. New exhibition portraying historical events and everyday life during the Roaring Twenties.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-03
  • , author=David S. Senchina , title=Athletics and Herbal Supplements , volume=101, issue=2, page=134 , magazine=(American Scientist) citation , passage=Athletes' use of herbal supplements has skyrocketed in the past two decades .}}
  • * 2002 , , The Great Nation , Penguin 2003, p. 481:
  • The year was divided up into twelve months renamed after the seasons [...]; each month comprised three ‘decades ’ of ten days – with the décadi replacing Sundays as a day of rest; and each day was reconsecrated to a natural product or farming tool or technique.
  • (Roman Catholicism) A series of ten Hail Marys in the rosary.
  • (physics, engineering) The interval between any two quantities having the ratio 10 to 1.
  • There are decades between 1.8 and 18, between 25 and 250 and between 0.03 and 0.003.

    Usage notes

    Unlike centuries or millennia (which properly run from xxx1 to xxx0), decades are an informal unit generally taken to run from xxx0 to xxx9. That is, the first century began in the year 1 and ended in the year 100 but the Nineties are those years whose name includes the word "ninety": '90, '91, '92...

    Synonyms

    * (ten years)

    generation

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The fact of creating something, or bringing something into being; production, creation.
  • * 1832 , (Charles Lyell), Principles of Geology , II:
  • The generation of peat, when not completely under water, is confined to moist situations.
  • The act of creating a living creature or organism; procreation.
  • * 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , IV.10:
  • So all things else, that nourish vitall blood, / Soone as with fury thou doest them inspire, / In generation seek to quench their inward fire.
  • * 1626 , (Francis Bacon), Sylva Sylvarum :
  • Generation by Copulation (certainly) extendeth not to Plants.
  • * c. 1605 , (William Shakespeare), Timon of Athens , First Folio 1623, I.3:
  • Thy Mothers of my generation : what's she, if I be a Dogge?
  • A single step or stage in the succession of natural descent; a rank or degree in genealogy, the members of a family from the same parents, considered as a single unit.
  • This is the book of the generations of Adam - Genesis 5:1
    Ye shall remain there [in Babylon] many years, and for a long season, namely, seven generations - Baruch 6:3
    All generations and ages of the Christian church -
  • (obsolete) Descendants, progeny; offspring.
  • The average amount of time needed for children to grow up and have children of their own, generally considered to be a period of around thirty years, used as a measure of time.
  • * 2008 , Edgar Thorpe, Objective English :
  • Before the independence of India the books of Dr P. K. Yadav presented a fundamental challenge to the accepted ideas of race relations that, two generations later, will be true of the writings of the radical writers of the 1970s.
  • A set stage in the development of computing or of a specific technology.
  • * 2009 , Paul Deital, Harvey Deital and Abbey Deital, iPhone for Programmers :
  • The first-generation iPhone was released in June 2007 and was an instant blockbuster success.
  • (geometry) The formation or production of any geometrical magnitude, as a line, a surface, a solid, by the motion, in accordance with a mathematical law, of a point or a magnitude; as, the generation of a line or curve by the motion of a point, of a surface by a line, a sphere by a semicircle, etc.
  • A specific age range in which each person in that range can relate culturally to one another.
  • Generation X grew up in the eighties, whereas the generation known as the millennials grew up in the nineties.
  • A version of a form of pop culture which differs from later or earlier versions.
  • People sometimes dispute which generation of Star Trek is best, including the original and The Next Generation.

    Derived terms

    * alternate generation * generation gap * Generation X * spontaneous generation

    Anagrams

    * ----