fifty, a. and n.
(ˈfɪftɪ)
Forms: 1 f{iacu}ftiᵹ, 2–4 fifti, 3 Orm. fifftiȝ, south. vifti, 3–5 fi-, fyfte, 3–6 fyfty, 4–6 fiftie, -tye, (6 fyvetie), 7 fivety, 4, 7– fifty.
[OE. f{iacu}ftiᵹ= OFris. fîftich, fîftech, OS. fîftich (Du. vijftig), OHG. fimfzug (MHG. fümfzec, fünfzec, mod.Ger. fünfzig), ON. fimm tigir (Sw. femtio, Norw. and obs. Da. femti), Goth. fimf tigjus, OTeut. *fimfi five + *tigiwiz, pl. of *teguz decade: see -ty.]
A. adj. The cardinal number equal to five tens, represented by 50 or 1. Also with omission of n., and in comb. with numbers below ten (ordinal and cardinal), as fifty-one, fifty-first, etc.
| Beowulf 2733 (Gr.) Fiftiᵹ wintra. c 1000 ælfric Deut. xxii. 29 Fiftiᵹ yntsena seolfres. a 1175 Cott. Hom. 225 Fifti fedme wid. c 1205 Lay. 1285 Fifti scipen fulle. 1297 R. Glouc. (1724) 518 Arst he adde ileye an erthe vnssrined vifti ȝer. c 1325 Metr. Hom. 18 A man haht him fifty penis. c 1380 Wyclif Wks. (1880) 192 Fourty or fyfty in a queer. c 1400 Destr. Troy 4064 In hor company come clene shippes fyfté. 1483 Cath. Angl. 132/2 Fifte sithe, quinquagesies. a 1561 G. Cavendish Metr. Vis. in Life Wolsey (1825) II. 31 This fyvetie or threscore yere. 1588 Shakes. L.L.L. iv. iii. 242 A withered Hermite, fiue score winters worne, Might shake off fiftye looking in her eye. 1611 Bible Gen. ix. 28 And Noah liued after the flood, three hundred and fifty yeeres. 1683 Pennsylv. Archives I. 57 To secure the Paeyment of fivety pounds of like money. 1777 Robertson Hist. Amer. (1783) II. 377 Near the fifty-third degree of latitude. 1847 Tennyson Princ. v. 305 Some fifty on a side. 1878 Morley Carlyle Crit. Misc. Ser. i. 199 The disruption of the French monarchy fifty years afterwards. |
b. Used indefinitely as a large number.
| 1818 Byron Juan i. cviii, When people say, ‘I've told you fifty times’, They mean to scold. 1870 Kingsley in Gd. Words 204/1 A merchant..who had fifty things to tell us of his own special business. |
† c. = fiftieth.
Obs.| 1539 Tonstall Serm. Palm Sund. (1823) 58 Expoundynge the gospel of John in the fyfty treaty. 1558 Kennedy Compend. Treatise in Wodr. Soc. Misc. (1844) 123 The Apostolis ressavit the gift of the Haly Gaist the fyftiday, callit in our language Wytsounday. 1578 Timme Caluine on Gen. 156 As we may read in the fiftie Psalme. |
B. n. 1. A set of fifty persons or things.
| c 1000 Ags. Gosp. Mark vi. 40 Hi þa sæton hundredon & fiftiᵹon. 1382 Wyclif Luke ix. 14 Make hem to sitte to mete by feestis, fyftyes. 1611 Bible 2 Kings i. 13 Hee sent againe a captaine of the third fiftie, with his fiftie. ― 1 Macc. iii. 55 Iudas ordained..captains..ouer fifties, and ouer tennes. 1844 Lingard Anglo-Sax. Ch. (1858) II. ix. 64 Every deacon read..two fifties [fifty psalms]. 1894 Times 23 Feb. 8/4 The price rose by fifties to {pstlg}3,450. |
2. a. The age of fifty years.
b. the fifties: the years between fifty and sixty in a particular century or in one's life.
| c 1714 Pope Imit. Hor., Epist. i. vii. 73 Near fifty and without a Wife. 1855 Tennyson Maud i. vi. 31 Ah, what shall I be at fifty Should Nature keep me alive? 1880 R. Broughton Sec. Th. II. iii. iv. 157, I know that I am somewhere in the fifties, and that I was born on a Monday. 1889 R. B. Anderson tr. Rydberg's Teut. Mythol. 9 A series of works published in the fifties and sixties. |
† 3. A fifty-gun ship.
Obs.| 1778 Burke Corr. (1844) II. 249 Two ships of the line, two fifties, and about four lesser frigates. 1799 Naval Chron. I. 292 Ships of the line 188, Fifties 27. |
C. Comb., as in
fifty-fold adj. and
adv.;
fifty-gun-ship;
fifty-pence piece, a cupro-nickel heptagonal coin worth fifty (new) pence, introduced in the
U.K. in 1969 during the conversion to decimal currency; also
fifty-penny piece;
fifty-per-cent a., usurious;
fifty-weight, half a hundredweight.
| c 1000 ælfric Gram. (Z.) 285 Quinquagenarius, *fiftiᵹfeald. 1606 Shakes. Ant. & Cl. i. ii. 70 Till the worst of all follow him laughing to his graue, fifty-fold a Cuckold. 1872 Proctor Ess. Astron. xi. 156 Exceeding fiftyfold the volume of the Sun. |
| 1806 A. Duncan Nelson 58 Ten sail of the line, and a *fifty-gun-ship. 1832 Marryat N. Forster xiii, A fifty⁓gun ship, frigate, and two corvettes, made their appearance. |
| 1969 Economist 18 Oct. 87/2 From this week the new *50p piece will gradually start replacing the old brown 10s notes. 1970 O. Norton Dead on Prediction ii. 34 The fifty-penny pieces still didn't look worth ten shillings to me. 1979 Washington Post 10 July a17/6 The British 50-pence piece has seven sides and is unambiguous. 1986 R. Rendell Live Flesh ii. 24 The room heater could be made to function by the insertion of twenty-pence pieces and the water heater fifty-pence pieces. |
| 1825 Knapp & Baldw. Newgate Cal. III. 496/1 No trades⁓man of a *fifty per cent. conscience. |
| 1667 Primatt City & C. Build. 105 Nine hundred and *fifty weight of Lead taken up in Ledges and Gutters. 1840 W. S. Mayo Kaloolah 140 Packing on my back about fifty weight of iron bolts. |
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Add:
[C.] fifty-year rule, a rule that public records should normally be open to inspection after a lapse of fifty years from their compilation (superseded in the
U.K. from 1968 by the
thirty-year rule: see
thirty a. and
n. C. b).
| [1912 1st Rep. R. Comm. Public Rec. 51 in Parl. Papers 1912–13 (Cd. 6361) I. 13 The following improvements are..considered desirable... Throwing all Departmental Records open to public inspection down to 1837, and all other Public Records after 50 years from their date, without exception in either case.] 1959 Encounter Aug. 41/1 The ‘*fifty-year rule’ which the archivists of the most enlightened countries claim to observe is a rule of rough-and-ready nature. 1966 Times 11 Aug. 13/2 Mr. Luard..asked the Prime Minister for a further statement about the relaxation of the 50-year rule governing the opening to public inspection of Cabinet and other official documents. |