How to spell twenty-first

hear it/'twɛnti_'fɜrst/adjectiveSilent and tricky

What it means: Coming next after the twentieth in position.

In a sentence: Ella will celebrate her twenty-first birthday next week.

Same family: first, twenty-one, twenty-second, twenty-third, twenty. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: The word "twenty-first" is a compound ordinal number formed from "twenty" (from Old English "twentig," meaning "two tens") and "first" (from Old English "fyrst," meaning "foremost" or "earliest"). English creates ordinals like this by combining a base number with an ordinal form, often using a hyphen.

Try spelling it

You will hear the word and a sentence. Type it and press Enter. Then four more words from the same level, so you know where you stand.

Words like this

fight · flight · account · dirty · pliers · couldn't · midnight · moonlight

Everyone has words they always get wrong. Spelling.School finds yours, shows you exactly why you miss them, and uses spaced repetition until you spell them right every time. Five minutes a day. Try five words without signing up.