tenth
Noun pluraltenths
Pluraltenths
Formstenths, tenthing, tenthed
- 1Coming next in order after the ninth, at number ten in a row.
Like being number ten when people line up one after another.
She finished in tenth place at the race.
October is the tenth month of the year.
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- 2One of ten equal parts that something is divided into.
Like one slice when you cut a cake into ten equal pieces.
A dime is one tenth of a dollar.
She gave away a tenth of her savings.
- 3Making up one of ten equal parts of something.
Each child received a tenth share of the candy.
She poured a tenth measure of juice into every glass.
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- 4The person or thing that comes right after the ninth one in a row.
Like the person standing right behind the ninth one in a long line.
She was the tenth in line at the bakery.
He came in as the tenth on the list of finalists.
- 5A musical distance of ten notes up the scale from a starting note.
Like climbing ten steps up a ladder of musical notes.
The singer reached a tenth above the bass note.
He played a tenth on the piano using both hands.
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- 6A very tiny length equal to one ten-thousandth of an inch.
Like a slice so thin you could stack ten thousand of them in one inch.
The machinist trimmed the part by a tenth to make it fit.
This gauge can measure down to a tenth.
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- 7A tax of one tenth of someone's belongings, once paid to the king.
Like giving the king one coin out of every ten you owned.
The king asked Parliament to grant a tenth that year.
Every household owed a tenth on its goods.
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- 8To split something into ten equal parts.
Like cutting a cake into ten equal slices.
They tenth the harvest and store each share separately.
We tenth the profits before sharing them out.
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Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English tenth, made from "ten" plus the ending "-th" that forms ordinal numbers.