Definition of "fourscore"
fourscore
numeral
(now archaic) Eighty.
Quotations
Thou ſtick'ſt a dagger in me, I ſhall neuer ſee my gold againe, foureſcore ducats at aſitting, foureſcore ducats.
c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene i], page 173
“I could be sorry for these men,” he said, “ay, and for that poor Queen, but what avail earthly sorrows to a man of fourscore?—and it is a rare dropping morning for the early colewort.”
1820, [Walter Scott], chapter XI, in The Abbot. […], volume III, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and John Ballantyne, […], page 353
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
1863 November 19, Abraham Lincoln, Dedicatory Remarks (Gettysburg Address), near Soldiers' National Cemetery, Bliss copy, page 1
(idiomatic) A full-length life, reckoned as eighty years.
Quotations
[…] I know every life is equally sacred, but that is a thought, another thought, I mean, all these valuable people who aren’t going to have their normal fourscore as it is now, these people aren’t going to be replaced, and it’s such a loss to the culture.
1986 November 24, Susan Sontag, “The Way We Live Now”, in The New Yorker