fives
- 1Plural of five.
He sorted the deck and pulled out all the fives.
Both dice showed fives after the final throw.
Note
The ordinary plural, formed regularly with -s. It follows every countable use of five: written figures, five-unit banknotes (compare fiver), things measuring five units, children aged five. Keep it apart from the plural-only words spelled the same way, such as the poker pair. Those have no singular to go back to, while this one always does.
- 2A ball game resembling tennis, in which players strike a ball against a wall, usually with the hand.
Much like squash, except the ball is struck with the hand rather than a racket.
The old college still keeps a court where students play fives.
Fives demands quick reflexes and a strong, accurate hand.
Note
The name looks plural but behaves as a mass noun. Fives is played, not fives are played, and one plays fives rather than a fives. The -s marks the name of a game, not a count of anything. It is chiefly a British word, so outside Britain it may need a brief gloss such as "a wall game played with the hand".
Fives is still played at the school.
They spent the afternoon playing fives.
- 3In poker and similar card games, a holding of two cards each ranked five.
He slow-played his fives and trapped an aggressive opponent.
A low pair like fives rarely wins a crowded, multi-way pot.
Note
Card-table shorthand: poker players name a pair by its rank in the plural, so fives alone means two fives held together. It exists only in the plural and belongs to the game's slang. In careful writing about poker, "a pair of fives" says the same thing without assuming the reader knows the jargon.
- 4In prison slang, the cells situated on the fourth floor of a wing.
After the fight, he was moved to fives for his own safety.
Most of the long-term prisoners were housed on fives.
Note
A UK prison word, used by insiders rather than in official language. Like the poker term it exists only in the plural, so no one is housed on a five. Note the apparent mismatch: fives names the fourth floor, not a fifth. Outsiders should take the term as the slang gives it rather than try to work it out from the number.
Less common meaning
- 5Stocks or government securities paying interest at a rate of five percent.
The merchant shifted his capital out of fives and into railway shares.
Look what the funds were on the 1st of March—what the French fives were when I bought for the count. And what they're at now.
1847, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity FairNote
Old finance named securities by the interest they paid, and a modifier could name the issuer. Thackeray's Vanity Fair (1847–48) has a character checking "what the French fives were when I bought." The usage is archaic and plural-only. Today you would write "five-percent bonds" or name the issue. In period fiction, read fives as a holding whose price rises and falls.
fives is a form of five
five, noun: The digit or written figure 5. Full entry
- Forms
- fivefives plural
- Spelling
- five → fives: add -s
- Sound
- The ending sounds like /z/.
Practice
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