Word.ws English Dictionary

eighties

eighties is the plural of eighty.

Noun

eighties pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) The decade of the 1880s, 1980s, etc.
    • Only kids born in the eighties remember this song!
    • Our readers — and contributors — are apt to elect a good deal according to years. The seventies and eighties, we may suppose, are concerned for the large educational and cultural interests of their Alma Mater; the nineties are deep in the practical and business activities; the noughties are not...1914, Amherst College, Amherst graduates' quarterly, volume 4, page 6
  2. (plural, plural-only) The decade of one's life from age 80 through age 89.
    • Only folks in their eighties remember this song!
  3. (plural, plural-only, rates) The range between 80 and 89.
    • No wonder I'm sweating, it's in the eighties!

Meaning of eighty

Numeral

eighty

  1. The cardinal number occurring after seventy-nine and before eighty-one, represented in Roman numerals as LXXX and in Arabic numerals as 80.
    • Merryday, who was appointed by President Geroge^([sic]) H. W. Bush, said the complaint contains eighty pages of repetitive claims and praise for President Trump, but fails to establish the two counts of defamation alleged.2025 September 19, Peter Charalambous, “Judge tosses Trump's $15B defamation suit against New York Times, Penguin Random House”, in ABC News, archived from the original on 20 Sep 2025
    Synonyms:
    fourscore

Adjective

eighties (not comparable)

  1. From or evoking the 81st through 90th years of a century (chiefly the 1980s).
    • Sue picked a playlist of eighties music for the dinner to remind her wife of that night they met all those years ago.
    • These publications can, however, be linked to a very eighties trend initiated among African American women writers like Toni Morrison and Alice Walker whose most distinguished novels deal with previously untold stories set deep in America's imperialist, slave-owning past.1995, Anthony Ilona, “Crossing the River: A chronicle of the black Diaspora”, in Wasafiri, volume 11, number 22, →DOI, pages 3–9

Synonyms of eighties

Forms of eighties

alternative formEighties
alternative form'eighties

Words formed from eighties

Words that rhyme with eighties

Questions about eighties

What does eighties mean?
Eighties means the decade of the 1880s, 1980s, etc.
What is eighties the plural of?
Eighties is the plural of eighty.
What part of speech is eighties?
Eighties can be a noun or an adjective.

Words near eighties in the dictionary

  1. eighthing
  2. eighthly
  3. eighthman
  4. eighthmen
  5. eighths
  6. eighties
  7. eightieth
  8. eightiethly
  9. eightieths
  10. eightish
  11. eightk

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: eighties (page history and authors); eighty (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-eighties.wav.

Cite this entry: “eighties.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/eighties. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.