thousandfold meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

thousandfold

adj

UK /ˈθaʊzəndfəʊld/ · US /ˈθaʊzəndfoʊld/

Etymology From Middle English thousendfold, from Old English þūsendfeald, from Proto-Germanic *þūsundīfalþaz, corresponding to thousand + -fold. Cognate with Dutch duizendvoud, duizendvoudig, German tausendfältig, Danish tusindfold, Swedish tusendfalt, tusendfaltig, Icelandic þúsundfalt.

Multiplied by one thousand (1000), repeated a thousand times.

The changes to the algorithm resulted in a thousandfold increase in efficiency, earning the engineer a small brass plaque.
[T]he fresh brave school-life, so full of games, adventures, and good fellowship, so ready at forgetting, so capacious at enjoying, so bright at forecasting, outweighed a thousandfold their troubles with the master of their form, and the occasional ill-usage of the big boys in the house.1857, [Thomas Hughes], “The War of Independence”, in Tom Brown’s School Days. […], Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, part I, page 185:

Having one thousand parts or members.

Looking into his eyes, you seemed to see there the yet lingering images of those thousand-fold perils he had calmly confronted through life.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Knights and Squires”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 125:

thousandfold

adv

By a factor of a thousand.

Derived terms: thousandfoldly