thirteen

American  

[thur-teen] / ˈθɜrˈtin /

noun

• thirteens
  plural

1. a cardinal number, 10 plus 3.

2. a symbol for this number, as 13 or XIII.

3. a set of this many persons or things.

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adjective

1. amounting to 13 in number.

thirteen British  

/ ˈθɜːˈtiːn /

noun

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

2. a numeral, 13, XIII, etc, representing this number

3. the amount or quantity that is three more than ten; baker's dozen

4. something represented by, representing, or consisting of 13 units

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determiner

1. 1. amounting to thirteen

      thirteen buses

   2. ( as pronoun )

      thirteen of them fell

Usage

Spelling tips for 13 The word thirteen (13) is hard to spell because it doesn’t simply combine the spelling of the base number (three) with the suffix -teen, as is done in other easy-to-remember spellings like fourteen and sixteen.  How to spell thirteen: When three is combined with suffixes, it transforms from three (a cardinal number) to third (an ordinal number). Then, the d is dropped: thirteen (not thirdteen); thirty (not thirdty). Remember: there's no d in thirteen.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• thirteens
  plural

Etymology

Origin of thirteen

before 900; late Middle English thirttene, variant of Middle English thrittene, Old English thrēotēne; cognate with Dutch dertien, German dreizehn, Old Norse threttān. See three, -teen

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

thirteen thirteens

The Higgs bosons themselves are produced when protons traveling at 99.99% the speed of light collide at energies reaching thirteen trillion electron volts.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 20, 2026

The National Football League season is back in full swing, with thirteen games on tap for the first NFL Sunday.

From Barron's ● Sep. 12, 2026

“He had been president only thirteen days—and now he faced the prospect that to end the war and save American lives, he might have to obliterate Japan’s cities,” Mr. Scott writes.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026

We just got new numbers, and it’s down to one in thirteen, an all-time low.

From Salon ● Mar. 26, 2025

At thirteen he was a musical prodigy and a rascal and the pride of my life.

From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom

Six seeds are 86-50 against the elevens, fives are 89-47 against twelves, and once you get to fours vs. thirteens, you're in never gonna happen territory.

From Golf Digest ● Mar. 18, 2019

I do not know, he adds, what the occult almanac makers predict, but out of curiosity I have looked back at some other thirteens.

From The Guardian ● Jan. 1, 2013

Whenever I have been wrecked, we had sailed as cheerily as you please—no thirteens, no Fridays, no dead men in the hold.

From Man Overboard! by F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford

Come in and bear a hand, and I’ll give you diet and lodging and a few thirteens when you earn them.”

From The Irish Fairy Book by Various

In this case the sum of the numbers 1, 11, 6, 9, 4, 7, 9, 6, is 53; casting out the thirteens the remainder is 1, the last of the series.

From Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1884-85, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1888, pages 253-372 by Cyrus Thomas