forty
for·ty/ˈfoɹti/number, noun, adjective
forty is spelled F-O-R-T-Y, 2 syllables: for·ty. The wrong spelling people search most is fourty: about 1,110 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 3 in 10 of all searches for the word. Forty is a number meaning “The cardinal number occurring after thirty-nine and before forty-one, represented in Roman numerals as XL and…”.
How many letters and syllables are in forty?
| Letters | 5: F-O-R-T-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2: for·ty |
| In writing | 16 times per million words; the 5,121st most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, fourty, about 1,110 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell forty?
Forty is spelled F-O-R-T-Y. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 3 in 10 of the searches for forty in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is forty?
Forty appears 16 times per million words in written English, the 5,121st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce forty?
- UK /ˈfɔːti/
- British /ˈfoːtɪj/
- US /ˈfoɹti/
Forty has 2 syllables, split for·ty in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-forty.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with forty?
One word on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as forty from its last stressed vowel (/oɹti/):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of forty
- forties plural
- more forty comparative
- most forty superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does forty mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
number
- 1
The cardinal number occurring after thirty-nine and before forty-one, represented in Roman numerals as XL and in Arabic numerals as 40.
noun
- 1
USslangA bottle (of beer) containing forty fluid ounces.
adjective
- 1
Resembling or characteristic of a fort.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forty in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense the cardinal number occurring after thirty-nine:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does forty come from?
From Middle English fourty, forty, from Old English fēowertiġ, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *fedwōr tigiwiz (“forty”). By surface analysis, four + -ty.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).