Fifteen

How to spell fifteen

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce fifteen

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does fifteen mean?

1. otherThe cardinal number equal to ten plus five, written 15.

Fifteen in a sentence

• The train leaves in fifteen minutes.

• She turned fifteen on her last birthday.

Where does fifteen come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English fīftīene, a compound of fīf, meaning 'five', and the suffix -tīene, which is itself a worn-down form of tīen, the Old English word for 'ten'. The construction is simply 'five plus ten', a pattern English shares with its Germanic relatives such as the modern German fünfzehn. The native -teen suffix attached to all the numbers from thirteen to nineteen, which is why we say fifteen rather than 'fiveteen'; the vowel softened over centuries of spoken use. The spelling settled with a single f at the start and the familiar -teen ending by the early modern period. Because the everyday number five keeps its full spelling, writers occasionally pause over fifteen, where the second f sits before the t.

How the word is built

• fif- (from Old English fīf: five)
• -teen (from tīen: ten, meaning 'plus ten')