eighty

[ey-tee]

noun

plural

eighties 

1. a cardinal number, ten times eight.

2. a symbol for this number, as 80 or LXXX.

3. a set of this many persons or things.

4. eighties, the numbers, years, degrees, or the like, from 80 through 89, as in referring to numbered streets, indicating the years of a lifetime or of a century, or degrees of temperature.

adjective

1. amounting to 80 in number.

eighty

/ ˈeɪtɪ /

noun

1. the cardinal number that is the product of ten and eight See also number

2. a numeral, 80, LXXX, etc, representing this number

3. (plural) the numbers 80–89, esp a person's age or the year of a particular century

4. the amount or quantity that is eight times as big as ten

5. something represented by, representing, or consisting of 80 units

determiner

1. 1. amounting to eighty

      eighty pages of nonsense

   2. ( as pronoun )

      eighty are expected

Word History and Origins

Origin of eighty¹

before 850; Middle English eighteti, Old English eahtatig. See eight, -ty ¹

Word History and Origins

Origin of eighty¹

Old English eahtatig; related to Old Frisian achtig, Old High German ahtozug

Example Sentences

“No. In fact, neither of you should be here for another eighty years or so.”

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Girls begin their training at around the age of eleven, taught primarily by haenyeo who are over eighty years old and have been diving for some seventy years.

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The rest—eighty students and twelve teachers—waited out the danger on the flat school grounds.

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Nineteen eighties financial innovation had all sorts of consequences, but one of them was a boom in the number of deals between big financial firms that required them to take each other’s credit risks.

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Sound takes about five seconds to travel a mile, so whatever happened was a bit over eighty miles away.

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When To Use

Spelling tips for 80

The word eighty (80) is hard to spell for two reasons. First, it is not spelled the way it sounds [ ey-tee ]. Second, it is tempting to use a double t because the base word (eight) ends in a t and the suffix -ty begins with one.  How to spell eighty: To spell eighty, you start by correctly spelling the first syllable [ ey ]. The easiest way to remember how to spell eigh- is with the classic mnemonic device: “I before E, except after C, except when it’s pronounced like a long A, as in neighbor and weigh.” The collection of letters eigh often makes a long A sound [ ey ].