[ad. L. chilias, -ad-, a. Gr. χιλιάς, χιλιάδ-ος, f. χίλιοι thousand. Cf. F. chiliade.]
1. A group of 1000 (things); a thousand.
1598. J. Dickenson, Greene in Conc. (1878), 114. With a chiliade of crosse Fortunes.
1656. Sanderson, Serm. (1689), 490. Decads, Centuries, Chiliads of novel Tenents, brought in in this last Age.
1773. Horsley, in Phil. Trans., LXIV. 300. Chiliads of fathom.
1876. Douse, Grimm’s Law, § 54. 126 Centuries, perhaps … chiliads of years before Christ.
† b. esp. of logarithmic tables. Obs.
[1617. H. Brigges (title), Logarithmorum Chilias prima.]
1675. Gregory, in Rigaud, Corr. Sci. Men (1841), II. 268. A table of logarithms, from the first chiliad, true to more places than any yet attempted.
1695. Phil. Trans., XIX. 61. Briggs’s first Twenty Chiliads of Logarithms.
1721–1800. Bailey, s.v., Tables of Logarithms are often called Chiliads.
2. A period of 1000 years.
1653. H. More, Conject. Cabbal. (1713), 220. The world then in the Seventh Chiliad will be assumed up into God.
1748. Hartley, Observ. Man, I. iii. 301. After some time, some Centuries, or even Chiliads.
1868. G. Macdonald, Seaboard Parish, III. ii. 32. Those grand cliffs before us bear on their front the scars and dints of centuries, of chiliads of stubborn resistance.
b. esp. The ‘thousand years’ mentioned in Rev. xx. 1–5; the millennium. rare.
1702. C. Mather, Magn. Chr., III. I. iv. (1852), 330. ’Tis evident from Justin Martyr, that this doctrine of the Chiliad was in his days embraced among all orthodox Christians.
1871. G. Macdonald, Wks. Fancy & Imag., iv. 104. Who in the chiliad sees the day, shall feel No anxious heart.
Hence Chiliadal, Chiliadic adjs., of or belonging to a chiliad or thousand years.
1816. G. S. Faber, Orig. Pagan Idol., I. 115. Another chiliadal repetition of the four ages.
1854. Chamb. Jrnl., I. 40. We … make no pretensions to decide upon the completion of the chiliadic periods.
