sixty

UK/ˈsɪksti/US/ˈsɪksti/

nounA1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — six sits at #240neutral

Other forms: sixties

Sixty is six times ten. Sixty miles an hour, sixty seconds, turning sixty this year.

It runs the clock because sixty divides evenly more ways than any nearby number. Sixty comes to us from the Babylonians, who counted in it four thousand years ago.

Definitions of sixty

1nounsixtySix times ten.A1
“There were sixty of them in the hall.”

sixty is a number.

Where it comes from

Old English sixtig, six plus the ending -ty meaning ten.

Proto-Germanic
*sehs tigiwiz — sixty
Old English
sixtiġ
Middle English
sixty
English, today
sixty

Middle English sixty, sexty, Old English sixtiġ, from Proto-Germanic sehs tigiwiz (“sixty”), equivalent to six + -ty. Cognate with Scots sexty, saxty (“sixty”), stq säkstich (“sixty”), West Frisian sechstich (“sixty”), Dutch zestig (“sixty”), German Low German sesstig (“sixty”), German sechzig (“sixty”), Swedish sextio (“sixty”), Norwegian seksti (“sixty”), Icelandic sextíu (“sixty”). Compare also Sanskrit षष्टि.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

← Vocabulary

sixty

UK/ˈsɪksti/US/ˈsɪksti/

nounA1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — six sits at #240neutral

Other forms: sixties

Sixty is six times ten. Sixty miles an hour, sixty seconds, turning sixty this year.

It runs the clock because sixty divides evenly more ways than any nearby number. Sixty comes to us from the Babylonians, who counted in it four thousand years ago.

Definitions of sixty

1nounsixtySix times ten.A1
“There were sixty of them in the hall.”

sixty is a number.

Where it comes from

Old English sixtig, six plus the ending -ty meaning ten.

Proto-Germanic
*sehs tigiwiz — sixty
Old English
sixtiġ
Middle English
sixty
English, today
sixty

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA