Idiom
three score and ten
Meaning
Seventy, being the number of years in a full lifetime of traditionally-expected duration.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“He lived to be three score and ten.”
“Most people hope to reach at least three score and ten.”
“My grandfather celebrated his birthday with a large party, having reached the age of three score and ten.”
“Modern medicine helps many people live much longer than the three score and ten years mentioned in ancient texts.”
“The retired professor spent his three score and ten years building a massive library that he eventually donated to the local university.”
“Reflecting on his long life, the author noted that he had surpassed the traditional span of three score and ten years.”
Examples
simple
“He lived to be three score and ten.”
“Most people hope to reach at least three score and ten.”
contextual
“My grandfather celebrated his birthday with a large party, having reached the age of three score and ten.”
“Modern medicine helps many people live much longer than the three score and ten years mentioned in ancient texts.”
“The retired professor spent his three score and ten years building a massive library that he eventually donated to the local university.”
complex
“Reflecting on his long life, the author noted that he had surpassed the traditional span of three score and ten years.”
Origin
The phrase comes from Psalm 90:10 in the King James Bible: "The days of our years are threescore years and ten." A score is twenty, so threescore and ten is seventy — the span the psalm gives as a typical human lifetime.
The wording stuck as a traditional way of naming the age of seventy, and by extension the length of an ordinary life. It now sounds deliberately old-fashioned or literary, used more for its biblical flavour than as a plain statement of number.
Key words
Related idioms
Stories
Wisdom & Poetry · See all Biblical origin
Job, Psalms, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes on how to live.
nothing new under the sun — Human affairs endlessly repeat; what seems novel has all happened before.
the patience of Job — Extraordinary endurance and calm in the face of prolonged suffering.
by the skin of your teeth — Just barely
pride comes before a fall — Arrogance and overconfidence tend to precede a downfall.
a fly in the ointment — A small flaw or problem that spoils something otherwise good.
my cup runneth over — A feeling of having blessings or good fortune in overwhelming abundance.
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