Etymologically
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millennial

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /mɪˈlɛn.ɪ.əl/[1]
  • US: /məˈlɛn.i.əl/[1]

Etymology

It is formed from English millennium + -al, from the stem of millennium;[2][3][4][5][6] the OED describes it as a borrowing of New Latin millennium combined with the English suffix.[3] The Latin noun was formed from mīlle (“thousand”) and annus (“year”) on the model of biennium and triennium.[2] The OED compares the earlier millenary and millenarian.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Relating to the millennium of Christian prophecy, the thousand-year reign of Christ: 1660, in H. More's Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godliness.[3][5] Etymonline dates it to the 1660s and Merriam-Webster to 1664.[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) knew it only in the religious sense, quoting Burnet on "the millennial happiness".[7] From 1807, in J. Barlow's Columbiad, it also meant lasting a thousand years or thousands of years.[3][2] As a noun it first meant a thousandth anniversary or its celebration, from 1896,[3][2][4] a sense the OED now marks as obsolete and rare.[3] From 1983 the adjective was used of the years around the end of the 20th century, especially of things made to mark the year 2000.[3] As a name for the generation coming of age around 2000, it is first recorded in W. Strauss and N. Howe's Generations (1991);[3][2] the OED defines them as born between the early 1980s and the mid 1990s, Merriam-Webster as born in the 1980s or 1990s.[3][4] Collins describes them as the generation that reached adulthood around 2000.[8]

Timeline

  • 1660 – relating to the millennium of Christian prophecy.[3]
  • 1807 – lasting a thousand years, or thousands of years.[3][2]
  • 1896 – noun, a thousandth anniversary.[3][2]
  • 1983 – relating to the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries.[3]
  • 1991 – noun, a member of the generation coming of age around 2000.[3][2]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Of or relating to a millennium, a period of a thousand years: the millennial history of the city.[8][4][3]
  2. In Christianity, of or relating to the millennium of Christ's reign foretold in Revelation.[8][4][3]
  3. Of or relating to the years around 2000, or to events marking that date.[3]
  4. Of or relating to millennials.[3][8]

Noun

  1. A member of the generation born in the 1980s and 1990s, who reached adulthood around the year 2000: Many millennials rent rather than own their homes.[8][4][3]
  2. A thousandth anniversary or its celebration.[4][5]

Word family

  • millennially
  • millennialism
  • millennialist
  • postmillennial
  • premillennial

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  8. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins