plethora

plural plethorae · plural plethoras

1. countableuncountableusuallyAn excessive amount or number; an abundance.

   The menu offers a plethora of cuisines from around the world.

   5 more examples

   1817, Francis Jeffrey, review of Lalla Rookh, in the Edinburgh Review He labours under a plethora of wit and imagination.

   I pushed my seat right up before the most insolent gazer, a short fat man, with a plethora of cravat round his neck, and fixing my gaze on his, gave him more gazes than he sent.

   1849, Herman Melville, Redburn: His First Voyage. […], 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC

   Meanwhile other hands had not been idle, so that above the dreary plethora of trash like Marquis von Grosse's Horrid Mysteries..., there arose many memorable weird works both in English and German.

   1927, H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature (The Aftermath of Gothic Fiction)

   Jefe: We have many beautiful piñatas for your birthday celebration, each one filled with little surprises! El Guapo: How many piñatas? Jefe: Many piñatas, many! El Guapo: Jefe, would you say I have a plethora of piñatas? Jefe: A what? El Guapo: A plethora.

   1986, Lorne Michaels, Steve Martin, Randy Newman, ¡Three Amigos! (film)

   The story of the woodhen is one outstanding conservation triumph in a plethora of tragedy.

   2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, page 233

   Synonyms: glut, myriad, surfeit, superfluity, slew

2. countableuncountablemedicineExcess of blood in the skin, especially in the face and especially chronically.

   [Y]our Character at Present is like a Person in a Plethora, absolutely dying of too much Health—

   1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal, IV.iii

   1 more example

   The food necessary for the maintenance of his dog, a bull-terrier, in the condition of ferocious plethora to which it was accustomed, he generously declared himself willing to pay for out of his own pocket, […]

   1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC