myriadn.adj.

Etymology: < post-classical Latin myriades (plural) multiples of ten thousand, a countless number (earliest in Vetus Latina as a translation of Greek μυριάδες ) or its etymon ancient Greek μυριάδες, plural (also used as adjective with plural nouns, in sense ‘countless, innumberable’) of μυριαδ-, μυριάς (rare in singular) < μυρίος countless, μυρίοι (plural) ten thousand (further etymology uncertain) + -άς -ad suffix¹. Compare Middle French, French myriade (1525 in Middle French in sense ‘ten thousand’, 1557 in sense ‘a countless number’), Italian miriade (a1494 in sense ‘ten thousand’, a1730 in sense ‘a great number’).Compare the isolated earlier borrowing of post-classical Latin miriada (singular; variant of myriades ) into Old English in the following (somewhat confused) passage:OE Byrhtferð Enchiridion (Ashm.) (1995) iii. iii. 194 Twelf [read tyn] þusend byð an miriada [L. mille decies multiplicati miridiam perficiunt]... Twa and twentig þusend wyrcað twa miriada [L. viginti duo milia duas miridias faciunt]. Senses A. 1 parallel uses in Greek, Latin, and French. Greek μυριάδες and Latin myriades in Jewish and Christian writers render, and are probably influenced by, Hebrew rḇāḇāh ten thousand, countless (compare Genesis 24:60, Leviticus 26:8). The adjectival use of ancient Greek μυριάς is poetic and rare; a much more usual way to express ‘countless’ is with μυρίος , lit. ‘one thousand’. In French, the sense ‘a countless number’ is found for both the singular and the plural; the attributive use is not found. Senses A. 3b and B. 1c parallel uses of the higher-order numerals hundred , thousand , and million . The formation of compounds with myriad- ( Compounds 1 – Compounds 3) may be partly inspired by ancient Greek and Hellenistic Greek words in μυριο- (e.g. μυριόϕωνος myriad-voiced). However, the earliest is myriad-minded (see quot. 1808 for myriad-minded adj. at Compounds 3), whose Greek model, μυριόνους , Coleridge says that he ‘borrowed from a Greek monk, who applies it to a Patriarch of Constantinople’: the form is not attested in classical Greek literature. In form myriard perhaps a transmission error, or perhaps showing suffix substitution (compare -ard suffix).