sixes
- 1Plural of six.
The dice came up sixes twice in a row.
Students lined up their sixes and sevens in neat columns.
Note
A regular plural: a noun ending in -x takes -es, as box becomes boxes. It serves almost every sense of six, including figures 6 written on a page, playing cards with six pips, and, in cricket, boundary hits worth six runs, as when a batsman strikes three sixes in an over.
- 2A pair of cards each showing six, especially as a starting hand in poker.
With sixes in the hole, she decided to raise before the flop.
His sixes held up against two players chasing a straight.
Note
Poker players name a pair by pluralizing its rank, so here the word means two sixes held together. It is always plural in this use and takes a plural verb. Players use it as slang at the table. A pair of sixes is a modest holding that is easily outdrawn once higher cards appear on the board, so it is often played with caution.
- 3Ellipsis of six of one.
Whether we leave now or in an hour, it's sixes for the schedule.
Highway or back roads? It's sixes, really.
Note
A clipped form of the saying six of one, half a dozen of the other, which rests on the joke that six and half a dozen are the same number. Saying only "sixes" leaves the listener to supply the rest of the saying. For that reason it suits casual speech among people who know the full saying, and in writing the complete version is clearer.
sixes is a form of six
six, noun: The time of six o'clock, whether in the morning or the evening. Full entry
- Forms
- sixsixes plural
- Spelling
- six → sixes: add -es
- Sound
- The ending sounds like /ɪz/, an extra syllable.
Use it in a sentence
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