fourscore
fourscore Lexical Profile
fourscore Game Scores & Validity
• adjective
Being four times twenty in number; amounting to eighty.
"The ancient oak tree had stood in the village square for fourscore years."
• noun
The cardinal number eighty (four times twenty), or a group or set of eighty people or things.
"The patriarch lived well beyond fourscore, witnessing four generations of his family grow."
Word Nuance & Usage
Primarily an archaic or literary numeral, 'fourscore' is today most widely recognized from the opening line of Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Gettysburg Address ('Four score and seven years ago') and Biblical translations such as Psalm 90 ('threescore years and ten, or by reason of strength fourscore years').
• Rhymes for fourscore
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
Formed in Middle English as a compound of 'four' and 'score' (from Old Norse 'skor', meaning a notch cut into a tally stick to mark twenty items).