twenty-one

noun

twen·​ty-one ˌtwen-tē-ˈwən How to pronounce twenty-one (audio)
ˌtwən-
1
: a number that is one more than 20 see Table of Numbers
2
[translation of French vingt-et-un] : blackjack sense 1
twenty-one adjective
twenty-one pronoun, plural in construction

Examples of twenty-one in a Sentence

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If the knife person in your life doesn’t have a carbon-steel blade already, the Japanese knifemaker Misono’s Swedish Carbon Gyuto ($125 for the twenty-one-centimetre blade) is a perfect start. Helen Rosner, New Yorker, 16 Nov. 2025 Controlling passage through the palisade were twenty-one ornate gates, spaced approximately fifty kilometers apart, meant not only to curb immigration of Han Chinese and Koreans into Qing lands but also to limit movement of any natural resources out. Literary Hub, 14 Nov. 2025 Five years ago, during the Brown Sugar tour, D was a shy twenty-one-year-old Virginia country boy who hid behind his keyboard onstage. Touré, Rolling Stone, 14 Oct. 2025 The Smithsonian on October 12 closed all twenty-one of the museums operating under its auspices as the US government shutdown begun on October 1 continued to draw on. News Desk, Artforum, 13 Oct. 2025 See All Example Sentences for twenty-one

Word History

First Known Use

circa 1611, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of twenty-one was circa 1611

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Cite this Entry

“Twenty-one.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/twenty-one. Accessed 23 Nov. 2025.

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