fourscore

alternative four score · alternative four-score

1. archaicEighty.

   Euen thoſe that were numbꝛed of them, were eight thouſand, and fiue hundꝛed, and foureſcoꝛe.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Numbers 4:48

   4 more examples

   Thou ſtick'ſt a dagger in me, I ſhall neuer ſee my gold againe, foureſcore ducats at aſitting, foureſcore ducats.

   c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i], page 173

   “I could be sorry for these men,” he said, “ay, and for that poor Queen, but what avail earthly sorrows to a man of fourscore?—and it is a rare dropping morning for the early colewort.”

   1820, [Walter Scott], chapter XI, in The Abbot. […], volume III, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and John Ballantyne, […], →OCLC, page 353

   Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

   1863 November 19, Abraham Lincoln, Dedicatory Remarks (Gettysburg Address)^(https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Gettysburg_Address_(Bliss_copy)), near Soldiers' National Cemetery, →LCCN, Bliss copy, page 1

   Old Martha was standing at a table trussing a pair of chickens for the market stall as she had trussed them for nearly fourscore years.

   1914, Saki, ‘The Cobweb’, Beasts and Superbeasts

2. idiomaticA full-length life, reckoned as eighty years.

   […] I know every life is equally sacred, but that is a thought, another thought, I mean, all these valuable people who aren’t going to have their normal fourscore as it is now, these people aren’t going to be replaced, and it’s such a loss to the culture.

   1986 November 24, Susan Sontag, “The Way We Live Now”, in The New Yorker, archived from the original on 25 Mar 2023

   Synonyms: three score and ten

plural fourscores · alternative four score · alternative four-score

1. A quantity or amount of eighty.

   W. J. Davis, a retired missionary, a veteran in the fourscores of his years.

   1922, James Edward Carruthers, Memories of an Australian Ministry, 1868 to 1921, page 125