four
[foː]
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: 5.53 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
num
Describing a set or group with four elements.
noun
An event in which the batsmen run four times between the wickets or, more often, a batsman hits a ball which bounces on the ground before passing over a boundary, resulting in an award of 4 runs for the batting team. If the ball does not bounce before passing over the boundary, a six is awarded instead.
Countable
Example Sentences
- "There are four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter."
- "Venters began to count them—one—two—three—four—on up to sixteen."
- "Redding’s study asked four psychologists with expertise in anxiety and depressive disorders to rate each self-help book on five criteria: […]"
- "Do you have any more fours? I want to make this a little taller."
- "Letters to Sheffield are despatched every morning at six, and arrive every afternoon at ten minutes past four."
- "Frederick, I presume, at this late hour of four, may be snatching a morsel of dinner; […]"
Etymology
PIE word *kʷetwóres Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *kʷetwṓr Proto-Germanic *fedwōr Proto-West Germanic *feuwar Old English fēower Middle English four English four From Middle English four, from Old English fēower, from Proto-West Germanic *feuwar, from Proto-Germanic *fedwōr, from previous pre-Grimm *petwṓr, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷetwṓr, the neuter form of *kʷetwóres. Doublet of cuatro and quatre. Cognates include Scots fower, Saterland Frisian fjauer, West Frisian fjouwer, Dutch vier, German Low German veer, German vier, Norwegian Bokmål and Danish fire, Swedish fyra, Gothic 𐍆𐌹𐌳𐍅𐍉𐍂 (fidwōr) and, more distantly, Latin quattuor (whence Spanish cuatro, French quatre), Ancient Greek τέσσαρες (téssares), Irish ceathair, Welsh pedwar, Armenian չորս (čʻors), Lithuanian keturi, Albanian katër, Sanskrit चतुर् (catur).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: four, fēower, *feuwar, *fedwōr, *kʷetwṓr
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: [foː]
- British English: [fɔː]
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Law.