▪ I. sextuple, a. and n.
(ˈsɛkstjuːp(ə)l)
[ad. med.L. type *sextuplus, f. sex six, after late L. quintuplus, septuplus: see quintuple, septuple. Cf. F. sextuple, Sp., Pg. sextuplo, It. sestuplo.]
A. adj.
1. Sixfold; six times as great or numerous; consisting of six parts or things.
| 1626 Bacon Sylva §186 Cause some halfe dozen Pipes to be made..with a single, double, and so on to a Sextuple Bore. 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. iv. v. 192 The proportion of man, whose length..is sextuple unto his breadth. a 1687 Petty Pol. Arith. i. (1691) 6 But what is exported out of Holland into England is worth three Millions; and what is exported thence into all the World besides, is Sextuple to the same. 1784 Herschel Catal. Double Stars in Phil. Trans. LXXV. 90 In the quadruple or n. preceding set, the two nearest very unequal... In the sextuple or s. following set, the two largest pretty unequal. 1805 T. Weaver tr. Werner's Ext. Charac. Fossils 170 A sextuple⁓passage [occurs] when the folia of a fossil intersect each other in six different directions. 1841 Elphinstone Hist. India I. 459 The fourfold division of the army (horse, foot, chariots, and elephants) was the same as that of Menu; but Strabo makes a sextuple division. 1868 Lockyer Guillemin's Heavens (ed. 3) 393 note, The great nebula which surrounds the sextuple star θ Orionis. 1884 Fortn. Rev. June 835 Our nearest continental neighbour..may have much to lose, by a quadruple or sextuple control. |
† 2. Mus. (See quots.) Obs.
| 1738 Chambers Cycl. (ed. 2), Sextuple, Sestuplo, in music, denotes a mixed sort of triple time, which is beaten in double time. 1746 Tansur New Mus. Gram. 32 The next Species [of Time] is Sextuple (or Binary-Tripla-Time..) and call'd Six to Four; each Bar containing six Crotches. |
† 3. = senary a.
| 1815 [see sexenary]. |
B. n. The number which is six times a specified number.
| 1657 Hobbes Absurd Geom. 5 The excesse shall be that proportion which unity hath to the sextuple of the number of termes after 0. 1692 J. Smith Seaman's Gram. ii. xv. 123 The Sextuple thereof is 1.817. |
▪ II. sextuple, v.
(ˈsɛkstjuːp(ə)l)
[f. sextuple n.]
1. trans. To multiply by six; to make six times as large, numerous, powerful, etc.
| 1632 W. Forster tr. Oughtred's Circ. Proportion 14 Bring the Anticedent arme unto the quadrupled space and the consequent arme, keeping that duplicated opening, will cut the space sextupled. 1656 Hobbes Six Lessons iii. 22 Your instance therefore of six, three, one, is here impertinent, there being in them no doubling, no tripling, no sextupling of Proportions, but of numbers. 1864 Maine Village-Commun. (1876) 248 We have sextupled our students. 1884 Edin. Rev. Oct. 358 The range of vision was more than sextupled. |
2. intr. To increase sixfold.
| 1861 M. Arnold Pop. Educ. France 157 note, The number of schools has more than doubled in the last twenty years..; the number of girl-scholars has sextupled. 1870 Daily News 18 June, In Ulster during 90 years the value of land was trebled, and in Scotland..it had sextupled. |