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sexagesimal

sexa·ge·si·mal/ˌsɛk.səˈdʒɛ.sɪ.məl/adjective, noun

sexagesimal is an adjective meaning “Of, related to, or based on the number sixty” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled S-E-X-A-G-E-S-I-M-A-L and has 4 syllables (sexa·ge·si·mal), and it appears about once in every 46 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does sexagesimal mean?

adjective

  1. 1

    Of, related to, or based on the number sixty.

    The common English divisions of time, longitude, and latitude are all computed using sexagesimal arithmetic.

noun

  1. 1

    A fraction involving division by 60; a sixtieth part of something.

    Decimals are actually less convenient than sexagesimals for working with most common fractions.

  2. 2

    A base-60 number.

    Babylonian mathematics was computed in sexagesimals.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce sexagesimal?

  • /ˌsɛk.səˈdʒɛ.sɪ.məl/

Sexagesimal has 4 syllables, split sexa·ge·si·mal in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-sexagesimal.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of sexagesimal

  • sexagesimals plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is sexagesimal?

Sexagesimal appears about once in every 46 million words in written English, the 209,386th 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).

Sexagesimal in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense related to the number sixty:

LanguageWords
Frenchsexagésimal
Germansexagesimal
Portuguesesexagesimal
Spanishsexagesimal

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 sexagesimal come from?

From Medieval Latin sexagesimalis, from sexāgēsimus (“sixtieth”) + -ālis (“-al”), from sexāgintā (“sixty”). Cognate with sexagenary and sexagenarian. Cf. sextal.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).