fortysomething
number, noun
fortysomething is a number meaning “An indeterminate value between 40 (inclusive) and 50 (exclusive)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-O-R-T-Y-S-O-M-E-T-H-I-N-G, and it appears about once in every 56 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does fortysomething mean?
number
- 1
colloquialAn indeterminate value between 40 (inclusive) and 50 (exclusive).
noun
- 1
colloquialA person between 40 and 49 years old.
She was a sprightly fortysomething.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of fortysomething
- forty-something
- fortysomethings plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is fortysomething?
Fortysomething appears about once in every 56 million words in written English, the 234,209th 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).
Fortysomething in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense A person between 40 and 49 years in age:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | quadragénaire |
| German | Vierzigjähriger, Vierzigjährige |
| Spanish | cuarentón, cuarentañero, cuadragenario |
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 fortysomething come from?
From forty + -something.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).