Etymologically
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seventy

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 22 October 2026 at 21:50. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • /ˈsɛv.ən.ti/[1]
  • US: /ˈsɛv.ən.di/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English seventy, inherited from Old English hundseofontiġ,[1][2][3][4] a numeral formed from hund, an element of uncertain origin,[2][3] seofon (“seven”) and -tiġ (“group of ten”), the source of -ty.[2][5][6] Merriam-Webster and the American Heritage Dictionary give the shorter Old English form seofontig, with the first element dropped, and Merriam-Webster takes that element to be hund "hundred".[6][7] The first element was lost early in Middle English, as it was in eighty.[2] Wiktionary traces the Old English word to Proto-Germanic *sebuntēhundą.[1] Related Germanic numerals include Old Frisian sawentich, Middle Dutch seventich, Old Saxon sibuntig, Old High German sibunzug and Old Norse sjautugr.[8][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Seven times ten, as an adjective: Old English, in the translation of Orosius's History.[8][9] The Old English numeral is found both as an abstract number and with a noun in the genitive, as in a phrase meaning "seventy men in all".[4] Merriam-Webster gives the 13th century as the first known use of the adjective.[6]

Semantic evolution

As a noun, the abstract number and the figures for it, the word is recorded from about 1175, in the Ormulum.[8][9] The Wycliffite Bible of about 1382 has the Seventy for the translators of the Septuagint,[8][9] and about 1535 the phrase also named the seventy disciples sent out in Luke 10:1.[8] It has meant seventy years of age since 1590;[8][9] a count-noun use, a group of seventy or a period of seventy years, is recorded from 1590 to 1904 and is now obsolete.[8] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as seven times ten, quoting Shakespeare's Coriolanus.[10] Among the Latter-day Saints, the Seventy has named a body of church officers since 1835.[8][9] The plural seventies, for the years 70 to 79 of a person's life or a century, and for temperatures in that range, is current.[11] Etymonline notes seventy-eight for a gramophone record played at 78 revolutions a minute, the standard until long-playing records arrived in 1948.[5]

Timeline

  • Old English – hundseofontiġ, seven times ten.[8][4]
  • c. 1175 – as a noun, the number seventy, in the Ormulum.[8]
  • a1382 – the Seventy, the translators of the Septuagint.[8]
  • c. 1535 – the Seventy, the disciples of Luke 10:1.[8]
  • 1590 – seventy years of age.[8]
  • 1835 – a body of officers in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[8]

Modern meaning

Numeral

  1. The cardinal number that is seven times ten, written 70 or LXX.
  2. Seventy people or things: Seventy turned up for the meeting.
  3. seventies (plural): the numbers from 70 to 79, especially the years of a person's life or of a century, or temperatures in that range: a man in his seventies.
  4. the Seventy: the translators of the Septuagint; also, the seventy disciples sent out by Jesus in Luke 10.
  5. the Seventy (Mormonism): a body of elders in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commissioned to do missionary work.

Word family

  • seventieth
  • seventy-eight

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  5. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c d e Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
  10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  11. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins