fyrretyve

Danish

Alternative forms

• fyrre

Etymology

Older form of fyrre. From Old Danish fyritiughu, from Old Norse fjórir tigir, from Proto-Germanic *fedwōr tigiwiz (“forty”, literally “four tens”), cognate with Norwegian førti, Swedish fyrtio, English forty, German vierzig, among others.

Note that the suffix -tyve in fyrretyve means “ten”, unlike the word tyve (of different origin: from Old Danish tiughu, from Old Norse tuttugu, from Proto-Germanic *twai tigiwiz (“twenty”, literally “two tens”)), which means “twenty” and which also forms part of the dated forms of the higher tens: halvtredsindstyve (“fifty”, literally “two and a half times twenty”), tresindstyve (“sixty”, literally “three times twenty”) etc.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈførəˌtyːvə/, [ˈfɶɐ̯ɐˌtˢyːʋə], [-ˌtˢyːʊ]

Numeral

fyrretyve

1. forty

   Synonyms: fyrre, firti

References

• “fyrretyve” in Den Danske Ordbog
• “fyrretyve” in Ordbog over det danske Sprog
• “tyve,4” in Ordbog over det danske Sprog