seventy

noun sev·en·ty \ ˈse-vən-tē , ˈse-bᵊm- , -dē \

Updated on: 11 Sep 2017

Definition of seventy

plural seventies

1 :a number equal to seven times 10 — see Table of Numbers

2 seventies plural :the numbers 70 to 79; specifically :the years 70 to 79 in a lifetime or century

3 capitalized :a Mormon elder ordained for missionary work under the apostles

—

seventieth

play \ˈse-vən-tē-əth, ˈse-bᵊm-, -dē-\ adjective or noun

—

seventy

adjective

—

seventy

pronoun, plural in construction

See seventy defined for English-language learners

See seventy defined for kids

Examples of seventy in a Sentence

She is in her seventies.

Recent Examples of seventy from the Web

There was the time in the late seventies, after curfew, when a call came to deliver multiple pizzas to the players’ dorm, Gage Hall.

— peter king, SI.com, "Monday Morning QB: Aaron Rodgers Never Wants to Retire (While Jay Cutler Changes His Mind)," 5 Aug. 2017
Elamin was released after five hours and is quick to acknowledge that others weren’t so fortunate: Yassin Abdelrhman, a green card holder in his late seventies from Sudan, was reportedly held at JFK for 30 hours.

— kristal brent zook, Essence.com, "How Donald Trump's Travel Ban Attempts Have Deeply Wounded Black Families And Individuals," 18 July 2017
The shah undoubtedly ran a repressive and undemocratic regime, but his vilification by human rights activists and the press in the seventies provided a new wave of revisionist historians with an easy foil.

— amir-hussein radjy, New Republic, "Rewriting the Iranian Revolution," 6 July 2017
I was born in 1964, which is long enough ago for me to have formed a vague firsthand impression of suburban, middle-class seventies feminism.

— kim france, Daily Intelligencer, "Feminism Rocks," 30 June 2017
Then, in the late seventies, he and Tom Epperson, a neighbor who shared his dreams of bigger things, up and left, first for New York and then, when that didn't work out, Los Angeles.

— scott feinberg, The Hollywood Reporter, "'Awards Chatter' Podcast — Billy Bob Thornton ('Goliath')," 24 June 2017
In the seventies, Irving Penn made clean, bright color-block pictures that would surely get thousands of Instagram likes today.

— shauna lyon, The New Yorker, "A Feast of Historic Food Photography," 13 June 2017
Real Time's format is a throwback to a seventies talk show—with a monologue, an interview, a panel discussion, some jokes, and a closing argument—but here everything is done without the benefit of breath-catching commercial breaks.

— james hohmann, Washington Post, "The Daily 202: Ohio is hurting because of Obamacare’s uncertain future, but Trumpcare could make matters worse," 7 June 2017
Separately, tens of millions of dollars passed through offshore companies registered to Sergey Roldugin, a cellist who befriended Putin in the seventies and who is the godfather of Putin’s eldest daughter, Maria.

— joshua yaffa, The New Yorker, "Putin’s Shadow Cabinet and the Bridge to Crimea," 29 May 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'seventy.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Origin and Etymology of seventy

seventy, adjective, from Middle English, from Old English seofontig, short for hundseofontig, from hundseofontig, noun, group of seventy, from hund hundred + seofon seven + -tig group of ten; akin to Old English tīen ten

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 13th century

See Words from the same year