fifteenth

Pluralfifteenths

1. 1
   adjective

   Coming next after the fourteenth; the ordinal form of the number fifteen.

   She celebrated her fifteenth anniversary at the company this spring.

   The climbers reached the fifteenth checkpoint just before nightfall.

   Note

   Built in the plainest way an ordinal can be: Old English fīftēoþa, simply fifteen with -th added. As an adjective it stands before its noun (the fifteenth floor, her fifteenth birthday) and cannot be compared, since nothing is more fifteenth than something else. The same form also serves as a noun, both for the one in fifteenth place and for a fraction.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   Whoever or whatever holds the fifteenth position in a sequence or ranking.

   The judges eliminated the fifteenth before the final round began.

   Counting from the door, the fifteenth on the shelf was the rare edition.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   Any one of fifteen equal parts into which a whole is divided.

   Each shareholder is entitled to a fifteenth of the annual profit.

   Two fifteenths of the repair budget went to the roof alone.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   In music, the interval spanning two octaves between a lower and a higher pitch.

   Doubling the melody at the fifteenth gave the passage a bright, bell-like ring.

   The organ's highest rank sounds a fifteenth above the note the player presses.

   Note

   Musical intervals are counted inclusively, with both end notes included. Two octaves therefore span fifteen diatonic steps, which makes the interval a fifteenth rather than a fourteenth. The upper pitch vibrates at four times the frequency of the lower one, which is why doubling a line at the fifteenth sounds bright rather than clashing. Don't confuse it with the fraction: here a fifteenth is a distance between notes, not a share of anything.

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