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fifth

Pronunciation: /fɪfθ/

The English word “fifth” has 10 meanings listed here.

adjective

  1. The ordinal form of the number five.

noun

  1. The person or thing in the fifth position.
  2. The fifth gear of a transmission.
  3. One of five equal parts of a whole: one-fifth.
  4. A quantity of liquor equal to one-fifth of an American gallon, or, more commonly, 750 milliliters (that is, three quarters of a liter).
  5. The musical interval between one note and another five scale degrees higher (the fifth note in a scale)
  6. The fifth voice in a polyphonic melody.

verb

  1. To sing in the fifth voice in a polyphonic melody.
  2. To support something fifth, after four others have already done so.
  3. To divide by five.

Etymology

PIE word *pénkʷe From Middle English fifthe, fifte, fift, from Old English fīfta (“fifth”), from Proto-Germanic *fimftô (“fifth”) or *femftô, equivalent to five + -th (ordinal suffix). Cognate with Scots fift, fyft (“fifth”), North Frisian fyfde (“fifth”), West Frisian fyfde (“fifth”), Dutch vijfde (“fifth”), Low German fifte, föfte, füfte (“fifth”), German fünfte (“fifth”), Danish femte…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.