seventeenth

American  

[sev-uhn-teenth] / ˈsɛv ənˈtinθ /

adjective

1. next after the sixteenth; being the ordinal number for 17.

2. being one of 17 equal parts.

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noun

1. a seventeenth part, especially of one (1/17).

2. the seventeenth member of a series.

seventeenth British  

/ ˈsɛvənˈtiːnθ /

adjective

1. (usually prenominal)

   1. coming after the sixteenth in numbering or counting order, position, time, etc; being the ordinal number of seventeen: often written 17th

   2. ( as noun )

      the ship docks on the seventeenth

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noun

1. 1. one of 17 approximately equal parts of something

   2. ( as modifier )

      a seventeenth part

2. the fraction equal to one divided by 17 ( 1/ 17 )

Etymology

Origin of seventeenth

before 900; seventeen + -th ²; replacing Middle English seventethe, Old English seofontēotha. ( see seven, tithe)

Example Sentences

It’s the negative image of an important intellectual movement of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Enlightenment, whose principles formed, among other things, the basis for American democracy.

From Salon • Jun. 25, 2025

Ever since Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovered the world of bacteria through a microscope in the late seventeenth century, humans have tried to look deeper into the world of the infinitesimally small.

From Science Daily • Oct. 18, 2023

"Perhaps the biggest change," Krondl writes, "is that the transportation has been cut from the six or seven months it used to take in the seventeenth century to some two weeks today."

From Salon • Sep. 11, 2023

In Europe, sugar consumption doubled every 25 years during this period and it was ultimately the profits of sugar that helped bankroll the British growth in power in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

From Textbooks • Jan. 1, 2020

Zero and the infinite were at the very center of the philosophical war taking place during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

From "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" by Charles Seife