Sixteenth

How to spell sixteenth

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce sixteenth

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sixteenth mean?

1. adjectiveComing after the fifteenth in a sequence; number sixteen in order.
2. nounOne of sixteen equal parts of a whole.

Sixteenth in a sentence

• adjective

  Her sixteenth birthday fell on a rainy Tuesday.

• noun

  The bolt measured one sixteenth of an inch across.

• adjective

  The meeting is scheduled for the sixteenth of March.

• noun

  Each heir received a sixteenth of the estate.

Where does sixteenth come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built from the native Old English number six, joined to the suffix -tene (the ancestor of modern -teen, meaning 'ten more'), and finished with the ordinal ending -th. The base six descends from the Old English siex, which traces back through the Germanic languages to the same ancient Indo-European root that gave Latin sex and Greek hex, both also meaning 'six'. The -teen part is simply a worn-down form of the word ten, so sixteen literally meant 'six and ten', and the ordinal -th turns a count into a position in a sequence, just as it does in fourth and tenth. The spelling keeps every piece visible, which is why the trap is the silent-looking cluster -teenth, where the n, t, and h all crowd together at the end. English has used this construction for ordinals since the Old English period, long before the modern numerals were ever written as digits.

How the word is built

• six (six)
• -teen (ten more)
• -th (ordinal suffix)