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sixteen

sixteen

289 1.0
The number after fifteen and before seventeen
  • numeral
  • /sɪkˈstin/
translation icon : dieciséis
  • I'm sixteen now.
  • sixteen years
  • sixteen percent
  • sixteen years old

And billions, billions of views in, in, in just sixteen months.

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Examples

  • Anna, tell me, what is it like to be sixteen?

  • Each of South Carolina's sixteen judicial circuits has at least one local review board.

    Academic text (2008)
  • Nine hundred sixteen dollars and twelve cents.

  • Sixteen years, to be exact.

  • Her first short story was published in 1894, when she was sixteen years old.

    Academic text (1999)
  • The message of ninety-eight words took sixteen and a half hours to transmit.

    Academic text (2011)
  • Sixteen years?

  • Even though he was no timid sixteen-year-old lad, this was the first time.

    Fiction book (1991)
  • Between the ages of eighteen and forty-four, she produced sixteen children, thirteen of whom survived to adulthood.

    Academic text (2011)
  • Anna, tell me, what is it like to be sixteen?

Synonyms

XVI
vssixteen
23 4.6

A Roman numeral for the number sixteen

is the Arabic digit form used to show that same value
xvi
vssixteen
2 7.4

A way of writing the number sixteen using the letters X V and I

is the simple Arabic digit form used to show that same value

Compounds

A standard test people fill in to measure 16 basic personality traits

Surface Forms

sixteen cardinal word
16 cardinal digit

Morphology

sixteen = six (transparent) = six + teen

The meaning directly follows from 'six' + the productive numerical suffix '-teen' meaning 'ten more than', so learners can infer 'sixteen' as 'ten plus six'.

Etymology

Sixteen is made from six and the ending -teen, where -teen comes from a word for 'ten', so it originally meant 'six plus ten'. That's why -teen numbers (like thirteen) are ten plus another number, and sixteen is the number 16.