Eight

Part of speech: noun, adjective

Pronunciation: /eɪt/

Definitions

1. The numeral denoting the quantity after seven and before nine indicates an ordinal position in a sequence and represents a specific count of objects, often utilized in mathematics and measurement
2. The number that follows seven and precedes nine represents a specific quantity and is also used to indicate a position within a series or ranking
3. This integer signifies the count after seven and before nine, and it can denote a rank or order in sequences

Etymology: The number eight has one of the oldest pedigrees in the language, traceable back to a reconstructed Proto-Indo-European form, "*oḱtṓw", which is also the ancestor of Latin "octo" and Ancient Greek "oktṓ". Its Old English form was "eahta" or "eahte", and the same root gave English words such as "aught" and "naught," which originally meant "anything" and "nothing" respectively, as in the old phrase "for aught I know." The word is a close relative of the numerals in many European languages, including German "acht," Dutch "acht," Swedish "åtta," and Irish "ocht," all of which share the same ancestry. The resemblance is so consistent across the family that it is one of the standard examples linguists use to demonstrate how sound changes work systematically over thousands of years. Its resemblance to the Tamil "eṭṭu" and Malayalam "eṭṭŭ" is a coincidence rather than a shared ancestry. Those Dravidian words are unrelated to the Indo-European family, so the similarity is a false cognate.

Synonyms: octet