Synonyms for forty

Grammar : Adj

Spell : fawr-tee

Phonetic Transcription : ˈfɔr ti

Définition of forty

Origin : Old English feowertig, from feower "four" (see four) + tig "group of ten" (see -ty (1)). Cf. Old Saxon fiwartig, Old Frisian fiuwertich, Dutch veertig, Old High German fiorzug, German vierzig, Old Norse fjorir tigir, Gothic fidwor tigjus.
[T]he number 40 must have been used very frequently by Mesha's scribe as a round number. It is probably often used in that way in the Bible where it is remarkably frequent, esp. in reference to periods of days or years. ... How it came to be so used is not quite certain, but it may have originated, partly at any rate, in the idea that 40 years constituted a generation or the period at the end of which a man attains maturity, an idea common, it would seem, to the Greeks, the Israelites, and the Arabs. ["The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia," James Orr, ed., Chicago, 1915]
Forty winks "short sleep" is attested from 1821, In early use associated with, and perhaps coined by, eccentric English lifestyle reformer William Kitchiner M.D. (1775-1827).

adj having 40 of something

Example sentences :

Found a rock hole with about forty gallons of water in it close to camp.
Extract from : « Explorations in Australia » by John Forrest

He would not have been embarrassed if they had been the Forty Thieves.
Extract from : « Malbone » by Thomas Wentworth Higginson

It was a short distance to the trees—twenty-five to forty yards, perhaps.
Extract from : « Way of the Lawless » by Max Brand

The usual working force of the House of Lords is from thirty to forty members.
Extract from : « The Grand Old Man » by Richard B. Cook

Several of these were killed, and their captain and forty men taken.
Extract from : « A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion » by William Dobein James

For foreguard I shall give you your own forty men, with two-score archers.
Extract from : « The White Company » by Arthur Conan Doyle

The forty are drunk, and the three are but indifferent sober.
Extract from : « The White Company » by Arthur Conan Doyle

I'll be one of forty nurses; indeed, for three months I'll be only a probationer.
Extract from : « K » by Mary Roberts Rinehart

Grotesquely enough, all at once he remembered that he was forty—that very day forty.
Extract from : « Thoroughbreds » by W. A. Fraser

But he was forty, and the methods of that many years must still govern his actions.
Extract from : « Thoroughbreds » by W. A. Fraser

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Based on : Thesaurus.com - Gutenberg.org - Dictionary.com - Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019