Fourteenth

How to spell fourteenth

10 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce fourteenth

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does fourteenth mean?

1. adjectiveComing after the thirteenth and before the fifteenth in a sequence; number fourteen in order.

Fourteenth in a sentence

• Her birthday falls on the fourteenth of June.

• The office is on the fourteenth floor of the tower.

Where does fourteenth come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is a native English compound, built entirely from Old English roots. The base 'four' descends from Old English 'feower', meaning the number four, which traces back through Germanic ancestors to the same Indo-European source that gave Latin 'quattuor' and Greek 'tessares'. The '-teen' element comes from Old English 'tien' or 'tyn', meaning 'ten', so 'fourteen' literally meant 'four plus ten'. The ordinal '-th' suffix, seen in 'fourth', 'sixth', and 'tenth', was the regular Old English way of turning a cardinal number into an ordinal one indicating position in a sequence. The spelling keeps the 'u' from 'four' even though it is not strongly heard, which is the main trap: writers who think only of the sound can drop it and write 'forteenth'.

How the word is built

• four (the number 4)
• -teen (ten more)
• -th (ordinal suffix)