Seventh

How to spell seventh

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce seventh

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does seventh mean?

1. adjectiveComing after the sixth in a sequence; ordinal form of seven.

Seventh in a sentence

• Her office is on the seventh floor of the building.

• The meeting is scheduled for the seventh of next month.

Where does seventh come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word comes straight from Old English, where the form was 'seofotha', built on the cardinal number 'seofon', meaning 'seven', plus the ordinal ending '-tha' that turns a count into a rank. Both parts are thoroughly Germanic: 'seofon' is a cousin of Dutch 'zeven', German 'sieben', and even Latin 'septem' and Greek 'hepta', all tracing back to a shared ancient root for the number seven. The ordinal suffix '-th' is the same one that gives us 'fourth', 'tenth', and 'hundredth'. Over the centuries the spelling tightened up, and the older medial vowel was lost, leaving the modern cluster of consonants that makes the word easy to rush; the spelling trap is keeping the 'n' before the '-th', since the sound of the 'n' is easy to swallow when speaking quickly. The word has stayed remarkably stable in meaning, simply marking the position after sixth and before eighth.

How the word is built

• seven (the cardinal number)
• -th (ordinal suffix)