seventeen

American  

[sev-uhn-teen] / ˈsɛv ənˈtin /

noun

seventeens plural

1. a cardinal number, 10 plus 7.

2. a symbol for this number, as 17 or XVII.

3. a set of this many persons or things.

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adjective

1. amounting to 17 in number.

2. (initial capital letter, italics) a novel (1916) by Booth Tarkington.

seventeen British  

/ ˈsɛvənˈtiːn /

noun

1. the cardinal number that is the sum of ten and seven and is a prime number See also number

2. a numeral, 17, XVII, etc, representing this number

3. the amount or quantity that is seven more than ten

4. something represented by, representing, or consisting of 17 units

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determiner

1. 1. amounting to seventeen

      seventeen attempts

   2. ( as pronoun )

      seventeen were sold

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• seventeens
  plural

Etymology

Origin of seventeen

before 900; Middle English seventene, Old English seofontēne (cognate with Dutch zeventien, German siebzehn ). See seven, -teen

Example Sentences

We would not extricate ourselves from that costly conflict for another seventeen years.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 24, 2026

When the young black poet Amanda Gorman became an international success after reading her poem “The Hill We Climb” at Biden’s inauguration, seventeen publishers quickly bought the rights.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 2, 2025

But training can vary and includes practice with auditory discrimination too, such as how to distinguish separate sounds in words like seventy and seventeen, and free and three.

From BBC • Feb. 15, 2025

As of April 2024, seventeen states and the District of Columbia have adopted the compact, jurisdictions that comprise 209 electoral votes.

From Salon • Sep. 30, 2024

Over the next four hours, fifty-five minutes, and twenty-three seconds, he orbited the world three times, at more than seventeen thousand miles per hour.

From "Reaching for the Moon" by Katherine Johnson