Ninety

How to spell ninety

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce ninety

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does ninety mean?

1. otherThe number that is one less than one hundred, written as 90.

Ninety in a sentence

• The meeting ran for ninety minutes before anyone took a break.

• Her grandfather turned ninety this spring and still drives.

Where does ninety come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Ninety descends directly from the Old English nigontig, a compound of nigon, meaning 'nine', and the suffix -tig, which marked a group of ten and gives modern English the -ty seen across thirty, forty, and sixty. The first element traces back to the same ancient Germanic root that produced German neun and Dutch negen, all ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European source for the number nine. Over the centuries the spelling settled around the silent letters of nine, so the word keeps the e from its parent number rather than the sound. That preserved e is precisely the spelling trap: the word is pronounced as if it ended in a simple -ty, which is why so many fluent adults write 'ninty' and drop the e. Remembering that ninety is literally nine plus a tens marker keeps the e firmly in place.

How the word is built

• nine (the number 9)
• -ty (suffix meaning a group of ten)