fifties

1. 1
   nounplural

   The decade running from the year ending in 50 through the year ending in 59, such as the 1850s or the 1950s.

   Suburban housing developments spread rapidly through the fifties.

   Jazz from the late fifties still fills the playlist at that club.

   Note

   Which century is meant is left to context. R. Marchant, writing in Railway Magazine in 1954, uses the fifties for the 1850s, the decade of the 1851 Exhibition and the heyday of the excursion train. The word always takes the definite article and a plural verb: the fifties were, never the fifties was.

2. 2
   nounplural

   The span of a person's life from age 50 through age 59.

   He took up long-distance cycling well into his fifties.

   Doctors often recommend regular screenings once patients enter their fifties.

   Note

   Age always arrives with a possessive: in your fifties, a man in his fifties, members in their forties and fifties. That possessive is what separates it from the decade of a century. In the fifties points to a calendar, while in her fifties points to a lifetime.

3. 3
   noun

   Plural of fifty.

   The teller stacked the fifties into neat piles on the counter.

   She withdrew her savings in fifties and twenties.

   Note

   The ordinary countable plural carries every noun use of fifty. It can mean banknotes or coins worth 50, as in a wallet full of fifties. In cricket it means a batsman's innings of 50 to 99 runs. Unlike the decade or a temperature band, which exist only in the plural, this one has a singular partner: one fifty, two fifties.

4. 4
   adjective

   Belonging to or evoking the 51st through 60th years of a century, especially the 1950s.

   He drives a lovingly restored fifties convertible.

   The diner leaned into a bright fifties aesthetic, all chrome and vinyl.

   Note

   As an adjective it works as a style label placed before a noun: a fifties potluck, fifties hairstyles and clothing. It almost always means the 1950s, and it often names a look rather than a date, such as rock 'n' roll dancing poses or ambrosia on the buffet table. It does not take comparison, so nothing is more fifties than something else.

5. 5
   nounplural

   The range of temperatures from 50 through 59 degrees Fahrenheit.

   Daytime highs hovered in the fifties for most of the week.

   The mercury barely climbed out of the fifties despite the sun.

   Note

   Weather talk in Fahrenheit counts in bands of ten degrees, and the fifties is a cool one, roughly 10 to 15 degrees Celsius. It is too warm for snow but rarely warm enough to feel like summer. The phrase belongs to forecasts and everyday conversation and is almost always framed with in the: highs in the fifties, a night in the low fifties.

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