Forty (40) is the number that follows 39 and precedes 41. Though it’s related to the number four (4), the modern spelling of 40 is forty. The older form, fourty, is considered a misspelling today. The modern spelling may reflect a historical pronunciation change.
Fourty examples
If you catch yourself misspelling the name of this number as fourty, you’re not alone. It’s a common mistake, both in print and online:
Forty examples
Nevertheless, the correct spelling, forty, prevails.
The second quote helps demonstrate how to get to the bottom of the issue. Check a dictionary! You will find that the correct spelling is definitely forty. Dictionaries provide any accepted alternate spellings of words, and there is no acceptable modern variant spelling of forty.
Why is fourty so common?
Why are there so many instances of fourty on the internet? Well, it’s kind of a tricky spelling, especially in compound numbers such as forty-four. Forty actually deviates from the pattern: There’s four, fourteen, and then forty. Afterward there’s four hundred, four thousand, and so on.
What about other related forms? Fortieth is the ordinal form of forty, so there’s no u. On the other hand, fourth is the ordinal form of four, so it is spelled with a u. In fact, that’s a good memory aid to help you differentiate between the two.
Why is forty different?
Forty is unique, but how did it get that way? The Online Etymology Dictionary traces forty to Old English from a Northumbrian word that compounded terms meaning “four” and “group of ten.” As early as 1821, its modern spelling appeared in the expressionforty winks, and three decades later it appeared in forty-niners. In case you’re wondering: forty winks refers to a short nap, and a forty-niner is a person who migrated to California in 1849 to prospect for gold. The San Francisco NFL team is called the 49ers (they tend to use numerals and thereby avoid the forty/fourty problem altogether). You can easily find references to these iconic forty terms in literature. Here’s one:
Don’t be too hard on yourself or others who add that extraneous u to forty. Its spelling is really not intuitive, and there are so many instances of fourty to be found that you could easily think it’s correct. Avoid being fooled by remembering that forty does not have a u.