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nineteen

UK/ˈnaɪntiːn/US/ˈnaɪnˌtin/
nounA1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechleans written

Nineteen is the number after eighteen. The last of the teens.

It is a prime number and it is the number of years in the Metonic cycle, after which the phases of the moon fall on the same dates again, which is how the date of Easter is calculated. Golf has the nineteenth hole, meaning the clubhouse bar, since a round has eighteen. Talking nineteen to the dozen is a British phrase for speaking extremely fast.

Definitions of nineteen

  1. 1nounnineteenThe number after eighteen.A1

    “He was nineteen when the photograph was taken.”

Where it comes from

  1. Proto-Germanic

    *newuntehun

  2. Old English

    niġontīene

  3. Middle English

    nyntene

  4. English, today

    nineteen

From Middle English nyntene, nynetene, from Old English niġontīene, niġontēne, from Proto-Germanic newuntehun. Cognate with Dutch negentien, Low German negenteihn, hrx neinzen, German neunzehn, Danish nitten. Equivalent to nine + teen

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 4 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word