OLYMPIAD • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Olympiad

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/oʊlˈɪmpiˌæd/ Listen

noun

Olympiad n.

(Greek Antiq.) A period of four years, by which the ancient Greeks reckoned time, being the interval from one celebration of the Olympic games to another, beginning with the victory of Coroebus in the foot race, which took place in the year 776 b. c.; as, the era of the olympiads.

The quadrennial celebration of the modern Olympic games; as, the first Olympiad (1906). See Olympics.

Synonyms: Olympic games, Olympics.

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Etymology of 'Olympiad'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Olympiad" Quotes from Famous Books

... of harps! What God? what Hero? What Man shall we celebrate? Truly Pisa indeed is of Jove, But the Olympiad (or, the Olympic games) did Hercules establish, The first-fruits of the spoils of war. But Theron for the four-horsed car That bore victory to him, It behoves us now to voice aloud: The Just, the Hospitable, The Bulwark of Agrigentum, Of renowned ...

— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... those Records that were preserved in the Temple of Apollo, upon the Promontory of Leucate: It is a short History of the Lovers Leap, and is inscribed, An Account of Persons Male and Female, who offered up their Vows in the Temple of the Pythian Apollo, in the Forty sixth Olympiad, and leaped from the Promontory of Leucate into the Ionian Sea, in order to cure themselves of the Passion ...

— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... years before the Christian era, a comet appeared which Aristotle (who was a boy at the time) has described. Diodorus Siculus writes thus respecting it: 'In the first year of the 102d Olympiad, Alcisthenes being Archon of Athens, several prodigies announced the approaching humiliation of the Lacedaemonians; a blazing torch of extraordinary size, which was compared to a flaming beam, was seen during several nights.' Guillemin, from whose interesting work ...

— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... for a stripling pugilist. But we must not forget that in the Greek world athletics held a peculiar place. The chief winner of Olympian games gave his name to an epoch (the ensuing Olympiad of four years), and was honored almost before all others in the land. A sound mind in a sound body was the motto of the day. To excel in feats of strength and dexterity was an accomplishment that even a philosopher ...

— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams