Skip to main content
fourth

fourth

3 1.0
A person or thing in position number four in a sequence
  • noun
  • /fɔrθ/
translation icon : cuarto
  • It's the fourth of July.

Examples

  • She finished in fourth place in the race after a strong start.

  • My wife and I would like to invite you to a fourth of July party tonight at our house.

  • We have a fourth chair, Ray.

  • And finally, there was a fourth reason we did this.

  • Three points determine a plane, and a fourth is one too many.

    Academic text (2009)
  • Still, it levels out at about a fourth of the peak rate.

    Academic text (2000)
  • At least one fourth of those listed were women!

    Academic text (1990)
  • Besides money, health, and religion, time is the fourth pillar of the things that drive us.

  • I was fourth in my class, and he hired a guy from the bottom three-fourths.

    Academic text (2003)
  • Manchester City, the defending Premier League champion, lost at Ajax, a team tied for fourth in the Dutch league.

    Blog text (11)

Synonyms

4th
vsfourth
353 1.0

Coming after the third in a list or on a calendar

is the word form spelled out to show the same ordinal position

Compounds

79 1.4

A national holiday in the United States that celebrates the Declaration of Independence of 1776

12 1.0

One of four equal parts, for example of a cake or pie

11 3.1

About the fourth and last year of high school or college

fourth dimension
  • Specialized
4 8.5

An extra dimension beyond length, width and height often used for time

fourth estate
  • Literature
4 5.7

News organizations like newspapers and TV that watch and report on people in power

fourth ventricle
  • Specialized
1 6.8

A small space in the brain that holds spinal fluid and lets it flow to the spinal cord

fourth power
  • Specialized
1 7.3

A number multiplied by itself four times

A military expedition from 1202 to 1204 that tried to take back Jerusalem but instead sacked Constantinople

1 9.9

A 1215 meeting of Catholic church leaders that set important church rules and beliefs

1 1.0

One of four equal pieces of something

Euclid's fourth axiom
  • Specialized
9.9

An axiom in Euclidean geometry that all right angles are equal

A meeting of church leaders in 869–870 that condemned Photius and helped cause the split between eastern and western churches

fourth cranial nerve
  • Specialized
7.0

A nerve that controls a top eye muscle and helps the eye look down

fourth deck
  • Specialized
7.4

A low floor on a large ship for storing goods or where crew sleep

A business or place of very low quality with bad service and dirty conditions

Fourth Reich
  • Offensive
9.9

A feared future German state that continues Nazi ideas

fourth stomach
  • Specialized
8.5

A last stomach compartment in animals like cows and sheep that digests food

Poor teaching in schools that does not prepare students

One of sixty-four equal parts of a whole

sixty-fourth note
  • Specialized
7.7

A very short musical sound equal to one sixty-fourth of a whole note

One of sixty-four equal parts of a whole

Surface Forms

fourth singular
fourths plural

Morphology

fourth = four (transparent) = four + th

The ordinal form is clearly derived from the cardinal number 'four' with the suffix '-th'.

Etymology

The word fourth comes from the number four plus the old ending -th, which turns a number into an order. So fourth means 'the one in position number four'.