sixty

Pluralsixties

1. 1
   numeral

   The cardinal number that comes after fifty-nine and before sixty-one, written as 60 and as LX in Roman numerals.

   The cake needs to bake for sixty minutes at a low temperature.

   Sixty volunteers showed up to clean the riverbank on Saturday.

   Note

   English builds its tens the same way, and this one is plainly six plus -ty. It comes from Old English sixtiġ, and before that from Proto-Germanic *sehs tigiwiz. Its synonym threescore reaches the same total by counting in twenties rather than tens: three scores of twenty. Where threescore appears in a text, read it as exactly sixty.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A broadcast advertisement that runs for sixty seconds.

   The agency produced a polished sixty for the brand's holiday campaign.

   Stations charge far more for a sixty than for a fifteen-second spot.

   Note

   Ad buyers shorten the name of the spot to its number of seconds. A sixty is a sixty-second spot, just as a thirty is a thirty-second one, and the plural is sixties. Jules Witcover's No Way to Pick a President (2014) notes that buying sixties instead of thirties costs twice as much. Outside the trade, write sixty-second spot, because the bare number reads as jargon.

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