foursome

English

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

From four +‎ -some.

Pronunciation

• (rhotic) IPA^(key): /ˈfɔɹsəm/
• (non-rhotic) IPA^(key): /ˈfɔːsəm/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)səm
• Hyphenation: four‧some

Noun

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

• (group of four): quaternion, tetrad; see also Thesaurus:quartet
• (sex act): fourgie

Derived terms

• foursome reel
• greensome
• mixed foursome

Translations

group of four

• Dutch: kwartet (nl) n, viertal (nl) n
• Finnish: nelikko (fi)
• French: quatuor (fr) m, quadrille (fr) m
• German: Vierer (de) m, only golf: Foursome (de) m or n
• Hungarian: négyes (hu)
• Polish: czworo (pl), czwórka (pl) f
• Portuguese: quarteto (pt) m
• Russian: че́тверо (ru) (čétvero), четвёрка (ru) f (četvjórka)
• Spanish: cuarteto (es) m

sex act between four people

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 四P (sì-P)

• Danish: firkant (da) c
• Polish: czworokąt (pl) m (slang)
• Swedish: fyrkant (sv) c

See also

• threesome