Meaning & use
olympiad
Last updated
A four-year period historically used by the ancient Greeks to date events, or, more commonly today, a major international competition in a particular field.
See it in a sentence
Students from forty countries competed in the International Mathematical Olympiad.
The ancient Greeks numbered their calendar in olympiads rather than single years.
A note on using this word
Today it's most often heard in the names of academic or chess competitions, separate from its original meaning as a unit of time.
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