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PlainSpell

sixth

/sɪksθ/adjective, noun, verb

sixth is spelled S-I-X-T-H: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 24 times per million words in written English, the 3,752nd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As an adjective, sixth means “The ordinal form of the number six” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in sixth?

Letters5: S-I-X-T-H
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing24 times per million words; the 3,752nd most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How common is sixth?

Sixth appears 24 times per million words in written English, the 3,752nd 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 sixth?

  • /sɪksθ/
  • [sɪkθ]
  • [sɪk(s)t̪]

Sixth has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-6th.ogg, En-us-sixth.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Back_ache-Sixth.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of sixth

  • sixths plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • sixthing participle, present
  • sixthed participle, past

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

What does sixth mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

  1. 1

    The ordinal form of the number six.

noun

  1. 1

    The person or thing in the sixth position.

  2. 2

    One of six equal parts of a whole.

  3. 3

    The interval between one note and another, five notes higher in the scale; for example C to A, a major sixth, or C to A flat, a minor sixth.

verb

  1. 1

    informalnonstandardrareTo divide by six, equivalent to multiplying a denominator by six.

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

Sixth in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchsixième, six (ordinal form of the number six – see also 6th)
Germansechste (ordinal form of the number six – see also 6th), Sechster (person or thing in sixth place), Sechstel (one of six equal parts of a whole), Sexte (interval)
Portuguesesexto (ordinal form of the number six – see also 6th), sexta (person or thing in sixth place)
Spanishsexto, seiseno (ordinal form of the number six – see also 6th)

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 sixth come from?

From earlier sixt, from Middle English sixte, from Old English siexta, from Proto-Germanic *sehstô. By surface analysis, six + -th (ordinal suffix).

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

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