twenty

英 ['twentɪ] 美['twɛnti]

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复数: twenties;

twenty 二十

来自 two,二，-ty,十，词源同 ten.

twenty: twenty: [OE] Twenty is etymologically ‘two tens’. The second syllable, -ty, is related to ten, and twen- goes back to the same source as two, although its precise ancestry is not clear.
=> ten, two
twenty (n.): Old English twentig "group of twenty," from twegen "two" (see two) + -tig "group of ten" (see -ty (1)). Cognate with Old Saxon twentig , Old Frisian twintich, Dutch twintig, Old High German zweinzug, German zwanzig. Gothic twai tigjus is even more transparent: literally "two tens."

The card game twenty-one (1790) is from French vingt-et-un (1781). Twenty-twenty hindsight is first recorded 1962, a figurative use of the Snellen fraction for normal visual acuity, expressed in feet. The guessing game of twenty questions is recorded from 1786.

1. Brian counted to twenty and lifted his binoculars. Elena did the same.: 布赖恩数到20，举起了双筒望远镜。埃琳娜也照着做了。

2. By the time he's twenty he'll know everyone worth knowing in Washington.: 到20岁时，他就会认识华盛顿所有值得认识的人。

4. Southbound traffic tailed back for twenty miles on the M5 near Bristol.: 在布里斯托尔附近的5号高速公路上，南行的车辆排成了绵延20英里的长龙。

5. The agent spied for East Germany for more than twenty years.: 该特工人员为东德做了20多年的间谍。