thirty

UK/ˈθɜːti/US/ˈθɝti/

nounA1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — three sits at #80neutral

Other forms: thirties

Thirty is three times ten. A birthday people mind about more than they admit.

It is roughly the length of a month, which is why it appears in the old rhyme about which months have thirty days. A speed limit of thirty miles an hour is the British default in built-up areas, and the difference in survival rates between being hit at thirty and at forty is enormous, which is the whole argument for twenty-mile zones.

Definitions of thirty

1nounthirtyThe number equal to three times ten.A1
“The limit through the village is thirty.”

Where it comes from

Thirty is three tens. Old English þrītiġ says exactly that, and the shuffle from thritty to thirty is the same metathesis that gave us thirteen.

Proto-Germanic
*þrīz tigiwiz — thirty
Old English
þrītiġ
Middle English
thirty
English, today
thirty

Built from

þrittiġ · Old English — thirty
tretty · Scots — thirty

From Middle English thirty, metathetic alternant of thritty, from Old English þrītiġ, þrittiġ (“thirty”), from Proto-Germanic þrīz tigiwiz (“thirty”) literally “three tens”, equivalent to three + -ty. Cognate with Scots therty, tretty (“thirty”), West Frisian tritich (“thirty”), Dutch dertig (“thirty”), German dreißig (“thirty”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

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