twenty

[twen-tee, twuhn-]

noun

plural

twenties 

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?

adjective

1. amounting to 20 in number.

twenty

/ 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

determiner

1. 1. amounting to twenty

      twenty questions

   2. ( as pronoun )

      to order twenty

Word History and Origins

Origin of twenty¹

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of twenty¹

Old English twēntig ; related to Old High German zweinzug , German zwanzig

Example Sentences

Minson has spent more than twenty years studying the effects of heat exposure and how it relates to factors such as age, fitness level and illness.

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I can only watch as the monkey falls about twenty feet into the river, the impact creating a modest bloop in the blue-brown water that sloshes beneath the dock.

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Penelope felt as if the temperature had dropped twenty degrees.

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The only light came from the sunbeams that angled in at the cave’s arched mouth, some twenty feet away.

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Penelope was only fifteen, yet even she could see such behavior was ridiculous, and Lady Constance was a married woman of nearly twenty!

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