twentieth

Etymology

It continues inherited from Old English twentigoþa,^[2][3][4][5] from twentig (“twenty”) and the ordinal suffix -oþa.^[2][4] In Middle English this became twentithe.^[2][3] From the 16th century the word was remade from twenty and -th as twentieth.^[2][6][3] Northern Middle English also had twentiand, with the ordinal suffix of Old Norse tuttugandi.^[2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Next after the nineteenth, with its noun expressed: in the Old English Martyrology.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The fraction, one of twenty equal parts, appears as a noun in Robert Mannyng's Chronicle (c. 1330) and as an adjective in William of Palerne (before 1375).^[2] From 1643 the word stands alone, especially for the twentieth day of a month,^[2] and in music it is the interval of two octaves and a sixth (1609).^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it, more briefly, as "twice tenth; ordinal of twenty".^[7]

Timeline

• Old English – twentigoþa, the ordinal.^[2]
• c. 1330 – a twentieth part.^[2]
• 16th century – the modern form twentieth.^[6]
• 1609 – the musical interval.^[2]
• 1643 – used without a noun, as of a date.^[2]

Modern meaning

Adjective

1. Coming next after the nineteenth in a series; the ordinal of twenty, often written 20th.
2. Being one of twenty equal parts: a twentieth share.

Noun

1. Number twenty in a series, especially the twentieth day of a month: They arrive on the twentieth.
2. One of twenty equal parts of something.
3. (music) An interval of two octaves and a sixth.

Related words

• twenty

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.