twenties

1. 1
   nounplural

   The ten-year period of a person's life spanning ages 20 through 29.

   He spent most of his twenties traveling abroad.

   By her late twenties, she had founded two companies.

   Note

   Age is the commonest home for the word, almost always after a possessive: in his twenties, her late twenties, my early twenties. J.R.R. Tolkien plays on this in The Fellowship of the Ring (1954). His hobbits call the irresponsible twenties their tweens, the years between childhood and a coming of age at thirty-three. Like the other decade uses, it has no singular.

2. 2
   nounplural

   A ten-year span within a century covering the years 20 through 29, such as the 1920s.

   Fashion in the twenties favored short dresses and bold patterns.

   Historians often describe the twenties as a decade of rapid change.

   Note

   A decade name that takes the article and has no singular: people say the twenties, never a twenty. It fits any century, so it leans on context. A party inspired by the twenties usually means the 1920s, but the phrase itself does not say so. When the century matters, writing the 1920s or the 2020s removes the doubt.

3. 3
   noun

   Plural of twenty.

   She handed the teller a bundle of twenties.

   The wallet was full of crisp twenties.

   Note

   Each twenty here can be counted: one twenty, two twenties, with the y turning to -ies as in city, cities. In everyday speech the commonest twenties are banknotes, a colloquial use at home in a wallet or a till. The same spelling also carries plural-only meanings, such as the decade and a stretch of someone's life, which have no singular twenty behind them.

4. 4
   adjective

   Belonging to or evoking the third decade of a century, especially the 1920s.

   The film captured the twenties glamour of speakeasies and dance halls.

   Her apartment had a distinctly twenties aesthetic.

   Note

   Here the decade becomes a style label for clothes, haircuts and attitudes that call up the decade itself, nearly always the 1920s. It has no comparative or superlative, yet speakers intensify it freely: a bob looks so twenties. In 1987 George Kearns called two ladies very "twenties" and set the word off as a knowing usage. The everyday collocation is typical twenties styles.

5. 5
   nounplural

   A measurement falling somewhere from 20 to 29, as with temperatures or rates.

   Forecasters expect highs in the twenties through the weekend.

   Mortgage rates climbed into the twenties during that era.

   Note

   Forecasters and lenders use it for a deliberately rough figure, usually after in or into, and often narrowed with low, mid or high: highs in the low twenties. The scale goes unstated, so a temperature in the twenties depends on which scale the speaker has in mind. The word marks the band, not the exact number.

   Overnight lows will dip into the low twenties.

   Returns hovered in the high twenties for most of the year.

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