duodecade

plural duodecades · alternative dodecade

1. A period of twelve years.

   Each Chinese New Year during a "Jupiter return"—when a duodecade has passed and the Chinese zodiac animal of your birth year comes back around—it is expected that you find some red underwear to put on for the special occasion.

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   A second part is meadow-land, and every twelve years this is divided into as many parts as there are holders of village rights, and each one receives a share, of which he has the exclusive use until the redivision at the end of the duodecade.

   1880, The Popular Science Monthly, page 471

plural duodecades

1. nonstandardA period of two decades, a period of 20 years.

   When I divide the past sixty years, 1706-65, into twenty-year periods, [I discover that] in the first duodecade, 702 people died, that is, an average of 35 a year. In the second period to 1745, 850, or 42i/$ each year, perished.

   1996, Mary Lindemann, Health & Healing in Eighteenth-century Germany, →ISBN

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   McIntosh sampled four to six consecutive Leet Court sessions, usually covering two to three years, in each twenty-year span or 'duodecade' of her period. Her f1gures therefore provide a minimum number of communities involved ...

   1999, Reformation