English

edit
English numbers (edit)
[a], [b] ←  3 4 5  → 
    Cardinal: four
    Ordinal: fourth
    Abbreviated ordinal: 4th
    Latinate ordinal: quartary, quaternary
    Latinate reverse order ordinal: preantepenultimate
    Adverbial: four times
    Multiplier: fourfold
    Latinate multiplier: quadruple
    Distributive: quadruply
    Germanic collective: foursome
    Collective of n parts: quadruplet
    Greek or Latinate collective: tetrad
    Greek collective prefix: tetra-, tessera-
    Latinate collective prefix: quadri-
    Fractional: quarter, fourth
    Elemental: quadruplet
    Greek prefix: tetarto-
    Number of musicians: quartet
    Number of years: quadrennium, olympiad

Etymology

edit

From four +‎ -some.

Pronunciation

edit

Noun

edit

foursome (plural foursomes)

  1. A group of four, a quartet or a game (such as golf) played by four players, especially by two teams of two.
    • 1999, CMJ New Music Report, volume 59, number 631, page 28:
      The fired-up foursome takes itself very seriously, singing politically charged lyrics, which, in the tradition of Strife and Damnation AD, are strategically placed in the middle of slamming, moshable breakdowns.
    • 2009 August 30, Laura M. Holson, “A Dip Into Hollywood”, in The New York Times[1]:
      And Ms. Davies’s 7,000-square-foot guesthouse, the only building from the original estate to survive, is already a favorite among card-playing foursomes and others who want to lounge on the second-story deck and watch dolphins bob in the whitecapped waves.
    • 2011 October, Mike Nettleton, Shotgun Start, Krill Press, →ISBN:
      Also, since the players teed off simultaneously, the infamous "shotgun start," with several foursomes at each tee box, the tournaments ran notoriously slow.
  2. A sex act between four people.

Synonyms

edit

Derived terms

edit

Translations

edit

See also

edit