What does twentieth mean?
Twentieth is the ordinal number for twenty: it identifies the twentieth member of a sequence, the item ranked twentieth, or the position immediately after nineteen. It is also the conventional way to refer to the twentieth day of a month, as in “the twentieth of May,” and to describe a century or event belonging to the twentieth century. The adjective form is widely used in dates, historical periods, rankings, and sequences: “She was born in the twentieth century,” or “He finished twentieth in the race.” When used nominally, the word can stand for the person or thing occupying that position, the day of the month itself, or one of twenty equal parts of a whole. The word is formally neutral and common in both British and American English, with no meaningful regional difference. Its interest is largely structural: it turns the cardinal twenty into an ordinal by adding the suffix -th and changing the final y to i, producing one of the regular English number forms.
Denoting the twentieth member or position in a sequence or counting system.
"The archive contains documents from the twentieth century."
This is the most common use and is common in dates, historical periods, rankings, and sequences.
The person or thing occupying twentieth position; the twentieth day of a month; or one of twenty equal parts of a whole.
"The meeting is scheduled for the twentieth."
The fraction sense commonly appears with a determiner or numeral, as in “a twentieth” or “two twentieths.”
The plural is used for multiple entities occupying twentieth position or for multiple twentieth parts of a whole.
"Two twentieths of the estate went to charity."
Twentieth is where a quantity becomes a position: it does not mean “twenty of something,” but “number twenty in a sequence.”
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does twentieth come from?
Twentieth was formed within English from the cardinal twenty and the ordinal ending -th, with the final y of twenty changing to i in the modern form. The numeral twenty comes from Old English twēntig and belongs to the same broad Indo-European numerical family as English twice, twin, and the archaic twain. Its development followed the established English pattern in which cardinal numerals such as fifty and thirty form ordinals fiftieth and thirtieth.
Related word forms
How twentieth is actually used
The word is formally neutral and common in both British and American English. When used after a linking verb in a ranking, as in “He finished twentieth,” it has an adverbial function but is grammatically an adjective.
Easily confused with twentieth
Twenty is a cardinal number naming a quantity, whereas twentieth is an ordinal identifying number twenty in a sequence or position.