at sixes and sevens
/æt ˌsɪksɪz n̩ ˈsɛvənz/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.74 in modern English
27
Scrabble Score
16
Letters
3
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "[T]he poore, although they ſee that one hath great aboundance of corne, that an other hath great plentie of vvine: yet ought they not vvithſtanding to bear their penurie patiently, and not to runne and ſcratch for other mens goods, as if they vvere left at ſixe and ſeuen."
- "Yet if his majesty our sovereign lord / Should of his own accord / Friendly himself invite, / And say "I'll be your guest to morrow night." / How should we stir ourselves, call and command / All hands to work! Let no man idle stand. / […] / For 'tis a duteous thing / To show all honour to an earthly king, / And after all our travail and our cost, / So he be pleas'd, to think no labour lost. / But at the coming of the King of Heaven / All's set at six and seven: / We wallow in our sin, / Christ cannot find a chamber in the inn. / We entertain him always like a stranger, / And as at first still lodge him in the manger."
- "[H]e turn'd her out of Doors to his great Sorrovv, as he found aftervvards, for his Affairs vvent all at ſixes and ſevens."
- "The Goddeſs vvou'd no longer vvait; / But riſing from her Chair of State, / Left all belovv at ſix and ſeven, / Harneſs'd her Doves, and flevv to Heav'n."
- "I e'en unpacked my books and did a great deal to put them in order, but I was sick of the labour by two o'clock and left several of my books and all of my papers at sixes and sevens."
- "On a railway, I suspect, what little we do see of the country is seen quite amiss, because it was never intended to be looked at from any point of view in that straight line; […] the line of a railway is perfectly artificial, and puts all precedent things at sixes-and-sevens."
Etymology
From earlier set all (and other forms) on six and seven, from Middle English setten al at (or setten the world on) sixe and sevene (“to risk everything, take a chance”), probably a variant—either an exaggeration or mishearing—of setten on cynk (“number or throw of five on a die”) and sys (“number or throw of six on a die”), referring to the two highest throws and thus the riskiest bets on the dice in dice games. Folk etymology often links the phrase to the order of precedence of the livery companies in the City of London Corporation, in which the Worshipful Company of Skinners and the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors trade sixth and seventh place each year, but the phrase was already in use for a century before this practice began in 1484.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: -
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /æt ˌsɪksɪz n̩ ˈsɛvənz/
- British English: /æt ˌsɪksɪz n̩ ˈsɛvn̩z/
Usage
- British usage