millennial

/mɪˈlɛniəl/

/mɪˈlɛniəl/

Other forms: millennials; millennially

Anything millennial has something to do with a span of a thousand years. If you're an English history buff, you might mark your calendar to celebrate the millennial anniversary of the 11th-century Norman Conquest — which will occur in 2066. Save the date!

It sounds like "million," but millennial goes back to the Latin mille, or "thousand." It originally meant "pertaining to a period of 1,000 years," or "pertaining to a millennium." We still use it this way, referring to the 21st century and the new millennium: "The art museum put on a millennial show in 2000." It's most commonly used for the generation of people who were born in the early 1980s through the mid-1990s, the oldest of whom reached young adulthood around the year 2000, right at the turn of the new millennium.

Definitions of millennial

1. adjective

   relating to a millennium or span of a thousand years
   synonyms: millennian
2. noun

   a person born between approximately 1981 and 1996