Thirteenth

How to spell thirteenth

10 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce thirteenth

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does thirteenth mean?

1. adjectiveComing after the twelfth in a sequence; ordinal form of thirteen.

Thirteenth in a sentence

• Her birthday falls on the thirteenth of the month.

• The lift skips the thirteenth floor in many older hotels.

Where does thirteenth come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built from the native English number thirteen, which descends from the Old English threotiene, a compound meaning literally 'three and ten'. The first part comes from threo, the Old English form of 'three', and the second part is tiene, the ancestor of the modern '-teen' ending that runs through fourteen, fifteen and the rest. The ordinal '-th' suffix, also of Old English origin, is the same ending that turns four into fourth and six into sixth, marking position in a sequence rather than a count. Over the centuries the spelling settled with the 'thir-' opening, where the 'r' jumped ahead of the vowel from an older 'thri-' form, the same shift that gave us 'third' rather than 'thrid'. The spelling trap sits at the join: people are tempted to leave out the second 't' or to forget the final '-th', yet the word is simply thirteen with that ordinal ending added.

How the word is built

• thir- (variant of three)
• -teen (from Old English -tiene: ten)
• -th (ordinal suffix)