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• fifteen
  fifteen

  noun

  a cardinal number, ten plus five.
• Fifteen
  Fifteen

  noun

  history the Jacobite rising of 1715

fifteen

American  

[fif-teen] / ˈfɪfˈtin /

noun

fifteens plural

1. a cardinal number, ten plus five.

2. a symbol for this number, as 15 or XV.

3. a set of this many persons or things.

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adjective

1. amounting to 15 in number.

fifteen ¹ British  

/ ˈfɪfˈtiːn /

noun

1. the cardinal number that is the sum of ten and five

2. a numeral, 15, XV, etc, representing this number

3. something represented by, representing, or consisting of 15 units

4. a rugby union football team

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determiner

1. 1. amounting to fifteen

      fifteen jokes

   2. ( as pronoun )

      fifteen of us danced

Fifteen ² British  

/ ˈfɪfˈtiːn /

noun

1. history the Jacobite rising of 1715

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Usage

Spelling tips for fifteen The word fifteen is hard to spell because it doesn’t simply combine the spelling of the base number, five, with the suffix -teen, as is done in other easy-to-remember spellings like fourteen and sixteen.  How to spell fifteen: When five is combined with suffixes, the ve is turned into an f: fifteen (not fiveteen), fifty (not fivety), and fifth (not fiveth). Remember: there’s no v in fifteen.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• fifteens
  plural

Etymology

Origin of fifteen

before 900; Middle English, Old English fiftene. See five, -teen

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

fifteen Fifteen fifteens

It bears heavy signs of use and was made by Fuhrer Frères of Gstaad, the same Swiss firm that supplied fifteen axes to the 1924 Everest expedition.

From BBC ● Jul. 12, 2026

“How to save the world in fifteen easy steps,” read one headline the day it was published.

From Salon ● Jun. 26, 2026

A reading below 4% generally triggers a sell signal and it’s worth noting that the median market decline, following the 24 sell signals observed in the last fifteen years, is -1%.

From MarketWatch ● May 19, 2026

“Summerset has delivered a 19% compound annual growth rate in net tangible assets per share over the last fifteen years and is still growing its unit base 10% per year,” analyst Will Twiss says.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 3, 2026

“I talked to my husband fifteen minutes ago. He said that Emily is going to hit south of here around midnight.”

From "Storm Runners" by Roland Smith

Fifteen of the new lawmakers are women and 13 were imprisoned during the rule of Bashar al-Assad, who was overthrown in 2024.

From BBC ● Jul. 1, 2026

Fifteen countries signed a global declaration on Wednesday aimed at combating illegal and destructive fishing with better data.

From Barron's ● Jun. 17, 2026

Fifteen of them were people of color: 14 Black people and one Hispanic person.

From Slate ● Jun. 8, 2026

Fifteen years earlier, civil war had broken out when 11 states seceded and formed the Confederate States of America.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026

A few minutes later, Natnael and the Under Fifteen Fugees took the field to warm up for their final game of the year.

From "Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman's Quest to Make a Difference" by Warren St. John

As she switched into fifteens from sevens, her lack of power and confidence in contact was exposed.

From BBC ● Apr. 15, 2026

In 2022, for the first time, there will be a professional domestic tournament for women’s fifteens rugby.

From New York Times ● Mar. 17, 2022

When he threw parties for his three daughters—sweet fifteens, then engagements—social columnists came to write about the movers and shakers in attendance.

From Slate ● Jul. 14, 2016

The rise of sevens can have a knock-on effect, particularly in China where funding for fifteens has suffered.

From The Guardian ● Mar. 22, 2013

Lina was a couple of years older than Elsa, Lourdes, Sinita, and me; but her last year at Inmaculada, we were all in the same dormitory hall of the fifteens through seventeens.

From "In the Time of the Butterflies" by Julia Alvarez