sessenta

Forms

sessenta m or f^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote sesaenta, saseenta, sasseenta and seseẽta; the 15th century has sesemta and ssesseenta.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sexāgintā (“sixty”), written Old Galician-Portuguese sesaenta in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1][5] Nascentes traces the modern form through the old Old Galician-Portuguese sessaenta and Old Galician-Portuguese sesseenta, and notes that the Latin /ks/ had already become a double /s/ in popular Latin.^[5][6] Cunha compares seis.^[3]

The same Latin word is Galician sesenta, Spanish sesenta, Catalan seixanta, Occitan seissanta, French soixante, Italian sessanta and Sardinian sessanta.^[7][1] Old Spanish had forms close to the Portuguese ones, Old Spanish sesaenta and Old Spanish seseenta.^[8]

The Latin numeral is formed from sex (“six”) with the tens suffix -gintā.^[9] Wiktionary takes it back to Proto-Indo-European *sweḱsḱomt, from earlier *swéḱs-dḱomt (“six-ten”), with Ancient Greek ἑξήκοντα (hexḗkonta) as a cognate.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lorenzo's chronology finds the numeral in a charter of 1282, sesaenta liuras “sixty pounds”, and in the Cantigas de Santa Maria, where cantiga 349 counts a year ontre mil e sesaenta.^[4] The Crónica Geral of 1344 has sasẽeta cavallos “sixty horses”, and the Miragres de Santiago have saseenta caualeiros “sixty knights”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The meaning has not changed: the word is the cardinal number six times ten, used before a noun and on its own as the name of the number.^[2][10] The medieval texts often wrote it in Roman numerals, LX or LXa.^[11] Barbosa (1611) and Bluteau (1712) give with it the Latin equivalents of sessenta vezes “sixty times” and de sessenta annos “sixty years old”.^[12][13] Today it is also used after a noun for the sixtieth item of a series.^[2][10]

Timeline

• 1282 – sesaenta liuras in a charter.^[4]
• 13th century – the Cantigas de Santa Maria write mil e sesaenta.^[4][2]
• 1344 – sasẽeta cavallos in the Crónica Geral.^[4]
• 1365 – Houaiss's record of sasseenta.^[2]
• 1416 – saséénta in the Vida do Cativo Monge Confesso.^[14]
• 15th century – the spellings sesemta and ssesseenta.^[2]
• 1611 – Barbosa heads the word Sessenta.^[12]
• 1789 – Morais defines it as six tens.^[15]

Meanings

Numeral

1. sixty, the cardinal number between fifty-nine and sixty-one (60, LX): Comprou sessenta laranjas.^[2][16][1]
2. (after a noun) sixtieth, the one numbered 60 in a series: a página sessenta.^[2][10]

Noun

1. The number sixty, or its figure.^[2][16][1]

Word family

• sessentão

Related words

• seis
• sexagésimo
• sexagenário
• Latin sexāgintā
• Galician sesenta

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. sessenta
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. sessenta
4. ^ a b c d e f Instituto da Lingua Galega, Dicionario de dicionarios do galego medieval (DDGM), ed. Ernesto González Seoane, Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/ddgm, p. s.v. sesaenta
5. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. sessenta
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 467
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7886
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. sexaginta
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. sexāgintā
10. ^ a b c Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, revised online edition (2023–) of the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea (2001), https://dicionario.acad-ciencias.pt, p. s.v. sessenta
11. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Dicionario de dicionarios do galego medieval (DDGM), ed. Ernesto González Seoane, Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/ddgm, p. s.v. saseenta
12. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. sessenta
13. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. sessenta
14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. saséénta
15. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1789), Diccionario da lingua portugueza composto pelo padre D. Rafael Bluteau, reformado, e accrescentado, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 2, 398
16. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. sessenta