sixty, a. and n.
(ˈsɪkstɪ)
Forms: α. 1 siexteᵹ, 2–4 sixti (4 zixti), 4– sixty, 5 -sty, 6 sixtye, 6–7 sixtie; 1–2 syxtiᵹ, 3–6 syxty (5 syxti). β. 1 sexteiᵹ, -tih, -deih, -diᵹ, 1–2 sextiᵹ, 4–6 sexti, 4–6 sexty (5 cexty, Sc. sextie, sexte); Sc. 5 saxte, 6 -tie, 9 -ty.
[OE. siex-, syx-, sextiᵹ, = OFris. sextich, -tech (WFris. sechstich), MDu. sestich (Du. zestig), OS. sehstic (MLG. sestich, LG. sestig, söstig), OHG. sehszug, etc. (MHG. sehzic, -zec, G. sechzig), ON. sextigir (MSw. säxtighi, MDa. sexti; Icel. sext{iacu}u, Sw. sextio).]
The cardinal number equal to six times ten, represented by the symbols 60, LX, or lx.
A. adj.
1. a. In concord with a n. expressed or implied.
| α c 893 K. ælfred Oros. iv. vi. 172 æfter siexteᵹum daᵹa ðæs þe ðæt timber acorfen wæs. 971 Blickl. Hom. 35 On þæm ᵹeare bið þreo hund daᵹa & fif & syxtiᵹ daᵹa. a 1122 O.E. Chron. (Laud MS.) an. 852, He scolde ᵹife ilca ᵹear into þe minstre sixtiᵹe foðra wuda. c 1200 Trin. Coll. Hom. 51 On þralshipe hie wuneden two and sixti wintre. 1297 R. Glouc. (Rolls) 7260 In a þousend ȝer of grace & sixe & sixti riȝt. 1377 Langl. P. Pl. B. v. 441 Sixty sythes I..haue forȝete it sith. 1495 Trevisa's Barth. De P.R. viii. ix. 306 Syxty secondes make one mynute, syxty mynutes one gree. 1560 Bible (Genevan) Gen. v. 20 So all the days of Iered were nine hundreth sixty and two yeres. 1606 Shakes. Ant. & Cl. iii. vii. 50, I haue sixty Sailes, Cæsar none better. 1611 Bible Numb. vii. 88 The rammes sixtie, the hee goates sixtie. 1816 Scott Let. in Lockhart (1837) IV. i. 33 Longman's people had then only sixty copies. a 1860 Alb. Smith Med. Student (1861) 39 Some sixty of these small pieces of paper. |
| β c 950 Lindisf. Gosp. Matt. p. 19 Bisin [he] cueð wæstm[es] ðrittiᵹes, sexteiᵹes, & hundrades. Ibid. Mark iv. 20 [Hia] wæstmiað an ðrittiᵹ & an sextiᵹ. c 1250 Gen. & Ex. 663 Twelwe and sexti men woren ðor-to. 1330 R. Brunne Chron. Wace (Rolls) 10197 In þat louh ar sexti iles. 1393 Langl. P. Pl. C. iv. 234 Ich saued my-self and sexty þousand lyues. c 1470 Henry Wallace vi. 827 Sexty thai slew. Ibid. x. 878 Off his best men saxte was brocht toded. 1589 Montgomery Misc. Poems lviii. 6 Tuyse sax and saxtie ȝeirs he livd. 1816 Scott Antiq. xxiii, I hae kend this auld kirk, man and bairn, for saxty lang years. |
† b. Sixtieth. Obs.—0
| 1483 Cath. Angl. 332/1 Sexty,..sexagesimus. |
2. a. Followed immediately by a lesser numeral, as sixty-one, etc.
| 1597 Skene De Verb. Sign. s.v. Serplath, Ane thousand, three hundreth, sextie aucht zeires. 1728 Chambers Cycl. s.v. Star, Reducing the..Number of Knights [of the Star] to Sixty-two. 1777 Robertson Hist. Amer. (1783) III. 177 The most valuable of these was published by Purchas in sixty-six plates. 1848 Thackeray Van. Fair xi, The actress, who was sixty-five years of age. 1868 Rep. U.S. Commiss. Agric. (1869) 191 The new building..is one hundred and seventy feet long by sixty-one feet deep. |
b. sixty-six, a card-game in which a point is gained by scoring sixty-six; sixty-nine, 69 = soixante-neuf.
| 1857 T. Frere Hoyle's Games 4 The German game of ‘Sechs und Sechszig’, or Sixty-six, has never before, that we are aware of, been dressed in an English garb. 1888 [see soixante-neuf]. 1897 Daily News 22 Feb. 9/2 The game was called ‘66’. 1973 D. Lang Freaks 90 We spent many hours lying on her bed, more or less in the classical 69 position, but motionless. 1978 Guardian Weekly 23 Apr. 21/5 When I first met him, I thought 69 was a bottle of Scotch. |
3. a. Forming part of an ordinal number.
| 1647 Form for Ch. Govt. Prop. 12 The sixtie one Canon of the sixth generall Synode. 1777 Robertson Hist. Amer. (1783) II. 395 The sixty-second year of his age. 1821 Byron Cain ii. ii. 71 As The sixty-thousandth generation shall be. 1879 St. George's Hosp. Rep. IX. 77 The patient was out of bed on the sixty-second [day]. |
b. With part, or used absol. in this sense, esp. sixty-fourth; hence sixty-fourther, one who owns a sixty-fourth part of a vessel.
| 1768 Dr. Chauncy Lett. 74 It was but the sixty-thousandth part. 1811 L. M. Hawkins C'tess & Gertr. I. 269 A favor in the form of sixty-fourths of lottery-tickets. 1889 Whitby Gaz. 14 June 3/3 A shipowning port, in which the disease of the sixty fourther exists in an aggravated form. 1899 Werner Capt. Locusts 76 The minutest fraction of European blood,..one thirty-second, perhaps, or one sixty-fourth. |
B. n.
1. a. The abstract number sixty.
| 1340 Ayenb. 234 Þe tale of zixti þet is wel gratter, þet is of zixziþe ten. a 1400 Pistill of Susan 91 Turtils troned on trene By sixti I sayȝ. c 1425 Crafte Nombrynge (E.E.T.S.) 4 Þere he [the figure 6] schuld tokyne but sexty. 1594 Blundevil Exerc. i. (1636) 84 Which [numbers] maketh two sixties to bee kept in mind. 1728 Chambers Cycl. s.v. Character, The same Characters are sometimes us'd, where the Progression is by Tens; as 'tis here by Sixties. 1755 Johnson, Second,..the second division of an hour by sixty. 1886 Pendlebury Arithm. (1897) 5 The number in six groups of ten is called sixty. |
b. like sixty, with great force or vigour; at a great rate. colloq. or slang. (Cf. forty A. b.)
| 1848 Lowell Biglow Papers Poems (1890) II. 135 Though like sixty all along I fumed an' fussed. 1860 Slang Dict. 215 ‘To go like sixty,’ i.e. at a good rate, briskly. 1910 Dialect Notes III. 445 That child cuts up like sixty. 1975 J. D. Fitzgerald Great Brain does it Again ii. 20 We ran like sixty to the front porch. |
c. sixty per cent, a usurer. colloq.
| 1853 Reade Gold i. 1 What you do on the sly, I do on the sly, old sixty per cent. 1897 Marsh Crime & Criminal xii, Was he going to develop into a sixty per cent, and offer me a loan? |
2. Sixty years of age. Also sixty-one, sixty-two, etc.
| 1717 Prior Alma iii. 503 We find ourselves at Sixty wise. 1780 Mirror No. 103, He seemed to be about sixty, but retained a..florid complexion. 1842 Borrow Bible in Spain xxvi, He appeared to be about sixty-five. 1872 Calverley Fly Leaves (1903) 30 Although I am but sixty-three Or four. 1890 Spectator 11 Oct. 473/2 An old lady over sixty. |
3. pl. The years from 60 to 69 in a century or in a person's life. Now spec. the period 1960–9.
| 1886 Besant Childr. Gibeon ii. xxi, The old patter, that spoken by himself in the early sixties, was unknown. 1889 R. B. Anderson tr. Rydberg's Teut. Mythol. 9 A series of works published in the fifties and sixties. 1964 M. McLuhan Understanding Media ii. xxxi. 320 TV in the Fifties and Sixties spread to the entire population. 1978 Listener 3 Aug. 145/1, I was, alas, one of those who spent the Sixties sneering at the notion of parish⁓pump broadcasting. 1981 ‘D. Shannon’ Murder most Strange ii. 34 They were both in the sixties, middle-sized, sandy coloring. 1983 D. Gethin Wyatt xiv. 99 An ageing sixties swinger with the elegant mannerisms of a professional hotelier. |
4. a. pl. A particular quality of wool. b. A certain size of sewing-cotton.
| 1894 Daily News 23 Jan. 2/6 Medium sixties are a shade weaker. Ibid. 2 Feb. 2/6 Super 60's and the finer crossbreds..are steady. 1907 H. Wales The Yoke xix, Three reels of white cotton—one eighty and two sixty. |
c. A small flower-pot, sixty of which are formed from a cast of clay.
| 1802 W. Forsyth Treat. Culture & Managem. Fruit-Trees viii. 114 There are some [pots] smaller than sixtys, for seedlings and heaths. 1895 [see sixteen n. 5]. 1962 A. J. Huxley Garden Terms Simplified 69 Above are shown, to scale top row from left to right, an 8½ in. pot (16),..and a 3½ in. pot (large 60). |
C. Comb. a. With ns., forming attributive compounds, as sixty-gun, or with nouns in -er, sixty-pounder; sixty-miler (Austral.), a small cargo vessel which transports coal along the coast from Newcastle to Sydney; also sixty-sized adj.
| 1747 Dr. Lind Lett. rel. Navy (1757) I. 35 note, None who had not commanded..60 gun ships, would have a right [etc.]. 1756–7 tr. Keysler's Trav. (1760) I. 317 The French had erected a battery of twenty-four sixty pounders [etc.]. 1828 Cunningham N.S. Wales II. 257 Why could not the fellow..have had his sixty-guinea hoard taken from him? 1851 Glenny Handbk. Flower Garden 155 When they have taken good root, pot them into sixty-sized pots. 1882 U.S. Rep. Prec. Met. 123 A new 60-stamp mill has been under course of construction. 1933 I. Hamilton Nights Ashore 29 The Five Stars was a few tons larger than the average ancient sixty miler. Ibid. 210 During the slack ‘sixty-miler’ season. 1940 Blunden Poems 1930–40 202 And as the stream's last murmer stilled, Our sixty-pounders started talking. 1948 Sydney Morning Herald 28 Jan. 1/7 Sydney's gas supply now depends on the ‘60-milers’. |
b. Similarly when followed by a lesser number.
| 1860 All Year Round No. 73. 547 The gun was designed for a sixty-eight pound shot. Ibid., No sixty-eight pounder in the service. 1896 Godey's Mag. Apr. 407/1, I..returned..holding the sixty-one day record. 1899 Westm. Gaz. 2 Aug. 7 The sailing yacht Vendetta, a well-known sixty-five rater. |
c. sixty-fourmo (see quot.). Also called sixty-fours.
| 1805 in E. Howe London Compositor (1947) ii. 92 Forty-eights to be paid two shillings per sheet extra, and sixty-fours two shillings and sixpence per sheet extra. 1888 Jacobi Printers' Vocab. 126 Sixty-fourmo, a sheet folded into sixty-four leaves—written shortly, 64mo. |
d. sixty-four dollar question, $64 question, orig. the question posed at the climax of a U.S. radio quiz for a prize of sixty-four dollars, used transf. to denote a difficult or crucial question; also sixty-four dollar answer, sixty-four thousand dollar question, and varr.
| 1942 J. R. Tunis All American vii. 240 Here's the sixty⁓four dollar question. Will the team go to Miami? 1942 Time 18 May 22/3 The Jap..could still sweat over the $64 question. 1955 M. Gilbert Sky High xii. 176 ‘What have these receivers got to do with us?..‘That's the sixty⁓four dollar question.’ 1957 R. Hoggart Uses of Literacy vi. 150 All the time he had the sixty-four dollar answer but did not know it. 1957 Observer 21 July 1/3 Mr. Macmillan said..there was only one answer to the 64,000-dollar question—to increase production. 1958 Listener 4 Dec. 930/1, I come now to what you probably feel is the sixty-four-dollar question. How is all this to be paid for? 1963 N.Y. Times 2 Dec. 37/1 Mr. Baker..left the air, to return in 1942 as master of ceremonies on ‘Take it or Leave it’... He posed ‘the $64 question’, a term that became part of everyday language. 1967 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 7 Dec. 27/1 On June 1, 1955, ‘The $64,000 Question’ was born and commercial television was never the same again. 1979 Jrnl. R. Soc. Arts CXXVII. 143/2 Like his predecessor on this rostrum he left it to Mr. Tyrrell Burgess, our lecturer tonight, to tackle the sixty-four dollar question—What now? 1981 B. Healey Last Ferry from Lido vi. 101 It still leaves the sixty-four thousand dollar question. Where do we go from here? |