plethora
noun

- a very large amount of something, especially a larger amount than you need, want or can deal with

The Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary

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WORD ORIGIN

“Plethora” is from Late Latin plēthōra and the Greek plēthōrē (πληθώρη) meaning “fullness” or “superabundance”.

Some language experts argue that plethora is frequently misused in the sense of “many, a lot of something” because the original definition was “too much, an overabundance”, but most dictionaries ignore this technicality.

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PLETHORA’S SURPRISING HISTORY

While the word “plethora” is commonly used to describe an abundance or excess of something, few people know that its original medical context referred to an excess of blood.

In ancient Greek medicine, particularly in the theories of Hippocrates and Galen, the human body was believed to contain four essential fluids or “humors”: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. These humors needed to be in balance to maintain good health.

A “plethora” in this original medical context meant that a person had an overabundance of blood, which was thought to cause various ailments and health issues. Physicians believed that bloodletting, or the intentional removal of blood from the body, could restore the balance of the humors and treat the patient’s plethora.

In December 1799, George Washington, the first President of the United States, fell ill with a throat infection, which was diagnosed as acute epiglottitis or quinsy. His physicians performed several rounds of bloodletting, removing about 40% of his blood volume in an attempt to cure him. Unfortunately, the bloodletting likely weakened him further and contributed to his death on December 14, 1799.

The practice of bloodletting continued well into the 19th century before eventually falling out of favour as medical knowledge advanced and the humoral theory was replaced by a more accurate understanding of human physiology.

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SYNONYMS

- an excessive or abundant amount or number

abundance (of), all kinds of, ample (amount, store), a wealth (of), basketful, boatload(s), bonanza, buckets (of), bushels (of), bundles (of),  carloads (of), copious amount (of), cornucopia, crates (full, of), decent amount (of), droves (of), embarrassment of riches, enormous amount (of), fistfuls (of), floods (of), flocks (of), gobs (of), good deal (of), good few (of), heaps (of), huge amount (of), hundreds (of), inordinate amount (of), lashings (of), legions (of), loads (of), masses (of), mountains (of), multitudes (of), myriads (of), oceans (of), oodles, overabundance (of), overload, overflowing (with), overload, oversupply, oversufficiency, packs (of), piles (of), plenty (of), plentitude, PLETHORA (of), pots (of), profusion (of), rafts (of), reams (of), scores (of), shiploads (of), slews (of), stacks (of), surplus (of), tons (of), truckloads (of), treasure chest (trove), vast amount (of), volumes (of), wads (of), wealth (of), well-being, wellsprings, zillions (of)             

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SMUGGLE OWAD into an English conversation, say something like:

“New technologies have been responsible for the PLETHORA of new words added to the English language — in the 20th century alone, more than 90,000 words were added, and already in 2023, around 40,000.”

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