Etymology

twelfth

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Today it means: The ordinal form of the number twelve, describing a person or thing in position number 12 of a sequence. Full definition →

Middle English twelfthe ← Old English twelfta ← Proto-Germanic *twaliftô
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The story

  1. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*twaliftô“twelfth”
  2. Old English · inherited fromtwelfta“twelfth”
  3. Middle English · inherited fromtwelfthe
  4. English todaytwelfth

From Middle English twelfthe, twelfte, from Old English twelfta (“twelfth”), from Proto-Germanic *twaliftô (“twelfth”), equivalent to twelve + -th (ordinal suffix). Cognate with Scots twalt (“twelfth”), Saterland Frisian tweelfte (“twelfth”), West Frisian tolfde (“twelfth”), Dutch twaalfde (“twelfth”), German Low German twalfde, twalvde (“twelfth”), German zwölfte (“twelfth”), Danish tolvte (“twelfth”), Swedish tolfte (“twelfth”), Icelandic tólfta (“twelfth”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.