sixty

noun

six·​ty ˈsiks-tē How to pronounce sixty (audio)
plural sixties
1
: a number that is equal to six times 10 see Table of Numbers
2
sixties plural : the numbers 60 to 69
specifically : the years 60 to 69 in a lifetime or century
sixtieth adjective or noun
sixty adjective
sixty pronoun, plural in construction
sixtyish adjective

Examples of sixty in a Sentence

He retired when he was in his sixties.
Recent Examples on the Web This was particularly true at Ayotzinapa, thanks to a long guerrilla tradition: multiple campesino movements had flourished in Guerrero in the sixties and seventies, and two of their leaders, Lucio Cabañas and Genaro Vázquez Rojas, had close ties to the school. Alma Guillermoprieto, The New Yorker, 4 Mar. 2024 Bening plays Hoy Delaney, a mother, wife, and retired tennis coach in her sixties who goes missing seemingly out of nowhere. Krystie Lee Yandoli, Rolling Stone, 3 Mar. 2024 This is the decade when average net worth peaks, a figure close to $2 million for Americans in their late sixties. USA TODAY, 14 Jan. 2024 The couple’s activism goes back to the fifties and sixties, during the Civil Rights Movement. Dominique Fluker, Essence, 8 Feb. 2024 And in the sixties and seventies, like, there was an era of mathematics where abstraction was making huge strides in simplifying and unifying a lot of mathematics that was previously very empirical. Quanta Magazine, 1 Feb. 2024 One of Friedman’s major opponents in the sixties and seventies was James Tobin, a neo-Keynesian at Yale. Krithika Varagur, The New Yorker, 12 Jan. 2024 The defendants, who pleaded guilty to these crimes, ranged in age from their twenties to sixties. Geraldo Cadava, The New Yorker, 21 Dec. 2023 By the early sixties, Selikoff had collected data on a cohort of six hundred and thirty-two men who had worked in the insulation factory, some for many years. Siddhartha Mukherjee, The New Yorker, 11 Dec. 2023

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'sixty.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Middle English, from sixty, adjective, from Old English siextig, noun, group of sixty, from siex six + -tig group of ten; akin to Old English tīen ten

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of sixty was in the 14th century

Dictionary Entries Near sixty

Cite this Entry

“Sixty.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sixty. Accessed 18 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

sixty

noun
six·​ty ˈsik-stē How to pronounce sixty (audio)
plural sixties
: a number that is equal to six times 10 see number
sixtieth adjective or noun
sixty adjective or pronoun

More from Merriam-Webster on sixty

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