Etymology From earlier sixt, from Middle English sixte, from Old English siexta, from Proto-Germanic *sehstô. By surface analysis, six + -th (ordinal suffix).
1
The ordinal form of the number six.
And * God ſaw euery thing that hee had made : and behold, it was very good. And the euening and the moꝛning were the ſixth day.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 1:31:
Dr. Ridpath, in his usual happy manner, thanked the Executive Committee and the various members of the Association who had so earnestly cooperated with him in the work of the Sixth Annual Meeting now drawing to a close.1892, Western Association of Writers, Sayings and Doings of the Sixth General Meeting, Jones Brothers Publishing Company, pages 271–272:
3 more examples
[T]he law codes drafted in Athens in the late seventh and early sixth centuries were the work of individuals, Drakon and then Solon.1976, L[ilian] H[amilton] Jeffery, “Kylon and Drakon”, in Archaic Greece: The City-States, c. 700-500 b.c., New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s Press, →LCCN, →OCLC, section II (Central and Northern Greece), subsection 7 (Athens and Attica), page 86:
On Monday, the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency placed a similar detainer on Melvin Jovel, 18, who on Sunday was the sixth person to be arrested in the case.2007 August 21, Kareem Fahim, “Presidential Candidate Blames Killings on Newark Sanctuary Policy”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 30 Aug 2019:
As this sixth edition is published in 2011, it is exactly 25 years since the publication of the first edition in 1986. That, in itself, is a very sobering thought, for all kinds of reasons.2011 February 25, Peter Dicken, Global Shift, Sixth Edition: Mapping the Changing Contours of the World Economy, Guilford Press, page xi:
Etymology From earlier sixt, from Middle English sixte, from Old English siexta, from Proto-Germanic *sehstô. By surface analysis, six + -th (ordinal suffix).
1
Not used in the plural The person or thing in the sixth position.
2
One of six equal parts of a whole.
On the moon, however the weight of a pound-mass (lb or lbm) is only about one sixth of a pound-force (lbf).2000 October 9, Gérard P. Michon, “What is a slug, in the [engineering] weight measurement system?”, in Numericana.com:
3
Entertainment, Lifestyle, Music The interval between one note and another, five notes higher in the scale; for example C to A, a major sixth, or C to A flat, a minor sixth.
Etymology From earlier sixt, from Middle English sixte, from Old English siexta, from Proto-Germanic *sehstô. By surface analysis, six + -th (ordinal suffix).
1
Informal, Nonstandard, Rare To divide by six, equivalent to multiplying a denominator by six.
Why would anyone use sixthing when any (N − a²) divisible by 6 would also be divisible by 3? The answer is that sometimes the numerator and/or the denominator is simpler in sixthing,1993, Dead Reckoning: Calculating Without Instruments, page 102: