a. and sb. Forms: 1 fíftiȝ, 2–4 fifti, 3 Orm. fifftiȝ, south. vifti, 3–5 fi-, fyfte, 3–6 fyfty, 4–6 fiftie, -tye, (6 fyvetie), 7 fivety, 4, 7– fifty. [OE. fíftiȝ in OFris. fîftich, fîftech, OS. fîftich (Du. vijftig), OHG. fimfzug (MHG. fümfzec, fünfzec, mod.Ger. fünfzig), ON. fimm tigir (Sw. femtio, Norw. and obs. Da. femti), Goth. fimf tigjus, OTeut. *fimfi FIVE + *tigiwiz, pl. of *teguz decade: see -TY.]
A. adj. The cardinal number equal to five tens, represented by 50 or l. Also with omission of sb., and in comb. with numbers below ten (ordinal and cardinal), as fifty-one, fifty-first, etc.
Beowulf, 2733 (Gr.), Fiftiȝ wintra.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Deut. xxii. 29. Fifiȝ yntsena seolfres.
c. 1175. Cott. Hom., 225. Fifti fedme wid.
c. 1205. Lay., 1285. Fifti scipen fulle.
1297. R. Glouc. (1724), 518. Arst he adde ileye an erthe vnssrined vifti ȝer.
c. 1325. English Metrical Homilies, 18.
| A man haht him fifty penis, | |
| Another an honderet or the prise. |
c. 1380. Wyclif, Wks. (1880), 192. Fourty or fyfty in a queer.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, 4064. In hor company come clene shippes fyfté.
1483. Cath. Angl., 132/2. Fifte sithe, quinquagesies.
a. 1561. G. Cavendish, Metr. Vis., in Life Wolsey (1825), II. 31. This fyvetie or threscore yere.
1588. Shaks., Loves Labour’s Lost, IV. iii. 242.
| A witherd Hermite, fiuescore winters worne, | |
| Might shake off fiftie, looking in her eye: | |
| Beauty doth varnish Age, as if new borne, | |
| And giues the Crutch the Cradles infancie. |
1611. Bible, Gen. ix. 28. And Noah liued after the flood, three hundred and fifty yeeres.
1683. Pennsylv. Archives, I. 57. To secure the Paeyment of fivety pounds of like money.
1777. Robertson, Hist. Amer. (1783), II. 377. He [Magellan] continued his voyage towards the south, and at length discovered, near the fifty-third degree of latitude, the mouth of a strait, into which he entered, notwithstanding the murmurs and remonstrances of the people under his command.
1847. Tennyson, The Princess, V. 305.
| More, more, some fifty on a side, that each | |
| May breathe himself, and quick! by overthrow | |
| Of these or those, the question settled die. |
1878. Morley, Carlyle, Crit. Misc. Ser. I. 199. It is curious that an observer who could see the positive side of Frederick’s disruption of Europe in 1740, did not also see that there was a positive side to the disruption of the French monarchy fifty years afterwards, and that not only was a blow dealt to sham kingship, but a decisive impulse was given to those ideas of morality and justice in government, upon which only real kingship in whatever form is able to rest.
b. Used indefinitely as a large number.
1818. Byron, Juan, I. cviii.
| When people say, ‘I’ve told you fifty times,’ | |
| They mean to scold, and very often do. |
1870. C. Kingsley, Letters from the Tropics, in Good Words, XI. 204/1. One of us stumbled on a merchant returning to Surinam, who had fifty things to tell of his own special business, of the woods, the drugs, the barks, the vegetable oils, which he was going back to procure, a whole new world of yet unknown wealth and use.
† c. = FIFTIETH. Obs.
1539. Tonstall, Serm. Palm Sund. (1823), 58. Expoundynge the gospel of John in the fyfty treaty.
1558. Kennedy, Compend. Treatise in Wodr. Soc. Misc. (1844), 123. It is wryttin that the Apostolis ressavit the gift of the Haly Gaist the fyftiday, (callit in our language Wytsounday.)
1578. Timme, Caluine on Gen., 156. As we may read in the fiftie Psalme.
B. sb.
1. A set of fifty persons or things.
c. 1000. Ags. Gosp., Mark vi. 40. Hi þa sæton hundredon & fiftiȝon.
1382. Wyclif, Luke ix. 14. Make hem to sitte to mete by feestis, fyftyes.
1611. Bible, 2 Kings i. 13. Hee sent againe a captaine of the third fiftie, with his fiftie. Ibid., 1 Macc. iii. 55. Iudas ordained captains ouer the people, euen captains ouer thousands, and ouer hundreds, and ouer fifties, and ouer tennes.
1844. Lingard, Anglo-Sax. Ch. (1858), II. ix. 64. Every deacon read … two fifties [fifty psalms].
1894. Times, 23 Feb., 8/4. The price rose by fifties to £3,450.
2. a. The age of fifty years. b. The fifties: the years between fifty and sixty in a particular century or in one’s life.
c. 1714. Pope, Imit. Hor., Epist. I. vii. 73.
| Near fifty and without a Wife, | |
| I trust that sinking Fund, my Life. |
1855. Tennyson, Maud, I. vi. 31.
| Ah, what shall I be at fifty | |
| Should Nature keep me alive, | |
| If I find the world so bitter | |
| When I am but twenty-five? |
1880. Miss Broughton, Sec. Th., II. III. iv. 157. I know that I am somewhere in the fifties, and that I was born on a Monday—Monday’s child is full of grace, they say—but if you were to kill me for it, I could not tell you to a year.
1889. R. B. Anderson, trans. Rydberg’s Teut. Mythol., 9. The German linguist Schleicher has to some extent discussed the same problem as Pictet in a series of works published in the fifties and sixties.
† 3. A fifty-gun ship. Obs.
1778. Burke, Corr. (1844), II. 249. Two ships of the line, two fifties, and about four lesser frigates, under Admiral Barrington, make the whole of our armament there.
1799. Naval Chron., I. 292. In June 1798. Ships of the line 188; Fifties 27.
c. Comb., as in fifty-fold adj. and adv.; fifty-gun-ship; fifty-per-cent a., usurious; fifty-weight, half a hundredweight.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Gram. (Z.), 285. Quinquagenarius, *fiftiȝfeald.
1606. Shaks., Ant. & Cl., I. ii. 70. Till the worst of all follow him laughing to his graue, fifty-fold a Cuckold.
1872. Proctor, Ess. Astron., xi. 156. The space actually traversed by our globe as it circuits round the Sun, though enormous compared with any of our ordinary estimates of size—nay, though exceeding fiftyfold the volume of the Sun—is yet but the minutest fraction of that vast sphere over which the Sun exerts supreme sway.
1806. A. Duncan, Nelson, 58. Captain Troubridge had been detached from the fleet with ten sail of the line, and a *fifty-gun ship, to reinforce the rear-admiral.
1832. Marryat, N. Forster, xiii. A fifty-gun ship, frigate, and two corvettes, made their appearance off the mouth of the harbour.
1835. Knapp & Baldw., Newgate Cal., III. 496/1. No tradesman of a *fifty per cent. conscience.
1667. Primatt, City & C. Build., 105. For nine hundred and *fifty weight of Lead taken up in Ledges and Gutters 8l. 11s.
1840. W. S. Mayo, Kalootah, 140. The preparation consisted in packing on my back about fifty weight of iron bolts.
