twenty

American  

[twen-tee, twuhn-] / ˈtwɛn ti, ˈtwʌn- /

noun

twenties plural

1. a cardinal number, 10 times 2.

2. a symbol for this number, as 20 or XX.

3. a set of this many persons or things.

4. Informal. a twenty-dollar bill.

   Can you give me two tens for a twenty?

5. twenties, the numbers, years, degrees, or the like, from 20 through 29, as in referring to numbered streets, indicating the years of a lifetime or of a century, or referring to degrees of temperature.

   He lives in the West Twenties. She's in her early twenties. The temperature must be in the high twenties today.

6. Slang. Also 20 location; ten-twenty.

   What’s your twenty?

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adjective

1. amounting to 20 in number.

twenty British  

/ ˈtwɛntɪ /

noun

1. the cardinal number that is the product of ten and two; a score See also number

2. a numeral, 20, XX, etc, representing this number

3. something representing, represented by, or consisting of 20 units

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determiner

1. 1. amounting to twenty

      twenty questions

   2. ( as pronoun )

      to order twenty

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• twenties
  plural

Etymology

Origin of twenty

First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English twēntig; cognate with Old Frisian tw(e)intich, Old High German zweinzug ( German zwanzig ), Gothic twai tigjus two tens

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

twenty twenties

When it opened in 1914, McCullough writes, the waterway was “the culmination of a heroic dream of four hundred years and of more than twenty years of phenomenal effort and sacrifice.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 13, 2026

For twenty years, a series of presidents and many ordinary Americans viewed him as a financial guru, and a talisman against bad times.

From BBC ● Jun. 22, 2026

Alfonsi said in a statement Wednesday that her contract’s expiration over the weekend drew “to a close nearly twenty years with the network.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 27, 2026

Eaten with a hunk of sourdough, it made me feel — at least for twenty blessed minutes — like things were right with the world.

From Salon ● May 12, 2026

This is how Phineas dies, twenty days short of his thirty-seventh birthday.

From "Phineas Gage" by John Fleischman

"I think it's definitely shifting," said Nizier Lawrence, in his early twenties.

From Barron's ● Jul. 2, 2026

As the wind turns more north-westerly later through the week, Wimbledon is well placed to stay dry with a reasonably light breeze and temperatures in the mid twenties.

From BBC ● Jun. 28, 2026

The cooling trend continues further north and west with the low twenties for Scotland, Northern Ireland, western Wales and the far north and south-west of England.

From BBC ● Jun. 26, 2026

The Paris public prosecutor's office announced the death of a young man in his twenties after he crashed head-on into concrete blocks on a Paris ring road exit ramp on his motocross bike.

From Barron's ● May 31, 2026

He was in his early twenties and his hands were calloused and hard from labor.

From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy