from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
adjective Consisting of ten parts or members.
adjective Ten times as much in size, strength, number, or amount.
noun A tenfold amount or number.
intransitive & transitive verb To multiply or be multiplied by ten.
from The Century Dictionary.
Tenfold; containing ten times as many.
noun A number ten times repeated.
To increase tenfold.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
transitive verb rare To make tenfold; to multiply by ten.
adjective rare Tenfold.
noun rare A number ten times repeated.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
adjective archaicTen times as much.
noun archaic An amount multiplied by ten.
verb archaic To multiply by ten.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin decuplus : Latin decem, ten; see dekm̥ in Indo-European roots + Latin -plus, -fold; see pel- in Indo-European roots.]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From French décuple, from Late Latin decuplus ("tenfold"), from Latin decem ("ten"), and plico ("fold").
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Examples
With decuple vigour the stench now rose close to hand.
And so oft do away þe lasse nounbre out of his owne decuple, þat is to say, fro þat nounb {r} e þat is ten tymes so mych is þe nounb {re} þ {a} t comes of þe m {u} ltiplicacioɳ.
The truth simply is that if some remedy be not soon found for the situation created by these people, who are as stupid as they are mischievous, in a few years we shall be obliged either to decuple the gendarmerie, or to allow every citizen to go about armed with a revolver, in order to protect himself against our much too liberally emancipated young scolos! '
C {er} ten þ {ere} wel be vj vnitees by-twene 4 & ten. yf þ {o} u reken þ {ere} w {i} t {h} þe ten þe vnite, as þou may se. so mony tymes take 2. out of his decuple, þe quych is 20. for 20 is þe decuple of 2, 10 is þe decuple of 1, 30 is þe decuple of 3, 40 is þe decuple of
And, en (he contrary, thoMn whole Numbers, Cyphers pre - fixed before them, do neither increafe nor diminilb the Value; yet Cyphers before a decimal Fraction do diminiih its Value in a decuple Proportion: For .25, if yon prefix a Cypher before it, becomes t%%'o oc
hernesheir commented on the word decuple
Based upon the 10-root dec-, as in decade. Not to be confused with decouple.
December 15, 2011