four score and seven years ago
- idiom
- Archaic
:
hace ochenta y siete años
- Abraham Lincoln began his famous speech with the words four score and seven years ago.
Examples
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Abraham Lincoln said, "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth a new nation."
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The phrase four score and seven years ago remains widely recognized in American history.
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The historian referenced four score and seven years ago to evoke Lincoln’s legacy.
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In his speech, Lincoln referred to four score and seven years ago as a pivotal moment.
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Abraham Lincoln began his famous speech with the words four score and seven years ago.
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The phrase four score and seven years ago remains widely recognized in American history.
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The historian referenced four score and seven years ago to evoke Lincoln’s legacy.
Surface Forms
Morphology
four + score + and + seven + years + ago
If a learner knows 'score' = twenty and the number words, they can compute 4×20 + 7 = 87 and 'years ago' indicates a time in the past, so the overall meaning is directly derivable from the parts. Although the phrase is archaic/formal and famously fixed, its meaning is fully compositional given knowledge of the constituents.
Etymology
Four score and seven years ago uses the old word score, which meant twenty, so it literally means 'eighty-seven years ago'. Abraham Lincoln began the Gettysburg Address with these words, and that famous opening made the phrase a well-known, formal way to talk about a time long ago.
