sixty-eleven

== English == === Alternative forms === sixty-leven, sixty-'leven === Etymology === Originally as a calque of French soixante-onze, soixante et onze, &c. In American dialects, from humorous use of eleven to continue counting the sixties. === Adjective === sixty-eleven (not comparable) (informal, chiefly US, dialectical) Very many; too many to count; quite a lot. Synonyms: see Thesaurus:manifold (obsolete) Synonym of seventy-one. a. 1580, James MacGregor, Chronicle of Fortingall, s.v. 1571: Samyn yer, viz. ane M Vᶜ sexte lewn yeris the xxii. day of Februar, there com eftyr nown ane gret storym and snaw and hayll and wind that na man nor best micht tak up ther heddis nor gang nor ryd, and mony bestis war parcist furth in the storm, and mony men and vemen war parisht in syndry partis... 1877 June 16, Anonymous, "William Caxton, Printer and Mercer...", Part III, All the Year Round..., New Series Vol. 18, No. 446, p. 367: In the epilogue to the printed volume of the Recuyell, Caxton explicitly states that his work was "begun in Bruges, continued in Ghent, and finished in Cologne in the time of the troublous world, and of the great divisions being and reigning as well in the realms of England and France as in all other places universally through the world, that is to wit, the year one thousand four hundred and seventy-one," or sixty-eleven as he sometimes prefers to call it. 2024, Anonymous, French Language Guide for Travellers to Learn the Basics Fast, §9.1: For numbers seventy-one to seventy-nine, it proceeds as soixante-onze (sixty-eleven), soixante-douze (sixty-twelve), up to soixante-dix-neuf (sixty-nineteen). ==== Related terms ==== twenty-eleven, thirty-eleven, forty-eleven, fifty-eleven, seventy-eleven, eighty-eleven, ninety-eleven === References === “eleven, adj. & n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.