• trimillennial •
Pronunciation: trai-mi-len-i-êl • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective, noun
Meaning: 1. (Adjective) Occurring every three thousand years. 2. (Noun) Three thousand years, three thousandth anniversary
Notes: 
This seldom used word is based on an even more seldom used word, trimillennium "period of a thousand years". Trimillenary works just as well and is far more often encountered on the Web and in the literature. While the Good Words haven't been published for 3000 years, this is the 3000th Good Word, since we began publishing Good Words on alphaDictionary.com the 10th of December 2004.
In Play: Today's Good Word is the 3000th word in the GW dictionary. Celebrate it any way you wish. I will be raising a glass of champagne with my wife to our accomplishments and to our subscribers who have already relieved us of financial worry for some time to come.
Word History: Today's word, a borrowing from Latin, consists of four constituents: tri "three" + mille "thousand" + enn-, the combining form of annum "year" + -ial an adjective suffix. No one knows how mille came to be in Latin, but English million was borrowed from the child of Latin, Italian. In that language milione is the augmentative of mille, which started out meaning "large thousand". Latin inherited annum from Proto-Indo-European at-no "which goes; a year", found also in Oscan akno- "year, holiday" and Gothic athnan "year". Latin annum is used in the English phrase per annum, and the Latin adjective based on this word, annualis, turns up in English annual.
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