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four

[fawr, fohr]

Example Sentences Origin

noun

a cardinal number, three plus one.

a symbol of this number, 4 or IV or IIII.

a set of this many persons or things.

a playing card, die face, or half of a domino face with four pips.

fours, Jazz. alternate four-bar passages, as played in sequence by different soloists: with guitar and piano trading fours.

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Automotive.

an automobile powered by a four-cylinder engine.

the engine itself.

COLLAPSE

adjective

amounting to four in number.

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Four is always a great word to know.

So is slumgullion. Does it mean:

a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.

a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc.

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Idiom

on all fours. all fours (def. 3).

Origin:
before 1000; Middle English four, fower, Old English fēower; cognate with Old High German fior (German vier), Gothic fidwor; akin to Latin quattuor, Greek tésseres (Attic téttares)

Can be confused: for, fore, four.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To four

Example Sentences

She is the frist vessel carrying four fore-andaft sails that ever.

After serving on four faculty-hiring committees at community colleges in three.

Chinese firms now occupy three of the top four slots.

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She is the frist vessel carrying four fore-andaft sails that ever.

After serving on four faculty-hiring committees at community colleges in three.

Chinese firms now occupy three of the top four slots.

Here are four offshore frontiers where oil rigs are heading next.

The ancestors of birds may have taken to the air on four wings and a prayer.

Reaction includes a national strike by four million students.

Choose no more than three or four colors that appeal to you.

Four makers describe how they've mastered four different materials-and instruct you how to light up your wardrobe and more.

Long ago one of the four became much bigger than the rest.

To teach four courses/semester: fiction writing, craft of fiction, introduction to.

Four years after the investigation began there have still been no convictions.

Take off this summer on four great road trips that not only steer you through spectacular landscapes but.

If all four or three out of four advisors agree on the first bet, then bet all the money you have.

These four winter-blooming orchids are elegant and easy to grow.

Then you can download the four recorded tracks directly to your computerand into the audio editing software of yourchoice.

Though mounted separately, four shows work together.

The team will lose four scholarships, and the entire athletics department will be on probation for the next four years.

But its decision to dispatch four military transport aircraft to.

For the next four weeks we'll deck your desktop with holiday images.

The theory is consistent with the fundamental idea of four groups of particles and three types of reactions.

Four great fillings to fold up for dinner tonight.

Four high-tech telescopes allow you access them online and play paparazzi with your favorite stars of the night skies.

Players move round by throwing four coins and progressing as many squares as they throw heads.

He was believed to have been between four and seven years old.

Fluctuating star discovered four centuries ago still holds surprises for astronomers.

The four adjoining open-bottomed planters create deep beds.

The little cube has four slots, each of which can take its.

We invited four former finance ministers, four chairmen of big multinational companies.

It had four well-developed legs, which would have enabled it to move around on land.

Four programs may help stimulate an early interest in the sciences.

Take red, white, and blue outdoors with four fun party ideas.

The innermost four are black, surrounding a bull's-eye the size of a quarter.

The president, elected for a period of four years, is head of.

Each time the owner of four dogs goes, she takes along a different furry friend.

Although the number euthanized yearly is down to three million to four million, there is still more work to be done.

Keep it small enough for a pot by pruning the foliage and roots every four to five years.

It features twin fuselages, room for four and the biggest electric motor we've seen bolted to an airframe.

Britain has four such submarines, though only one is usually armed.

When people walk barefoot, the four smaller toes on each foot flex to allow better traction.

Because we've made the problem harder by allowing four columns, we'll make the rules of movement simpler.

Four bricks suffice, and they work well because they're flat and compact.

The company's announcement that it is embracing compact cars, shutting down four truck plants and possibly even dumping.

As many as four litres of water are used to make a litre of the bottled stuff.

By the end of the first day, a fierce rivalry springs up between the four carrying me and the four carrying.

The evolution of the living forms has four distinct transitions.

There are four basic pruning cuts, each aimed at producing a different effect.

Four jumped away all at once, and two came back one at a time.

Almost four years after the storm, a quarter of the.

These infants ride on their mothers' backs from the age of four months through the first two or three years of their lives.

Scientists generally describe human taste perception in terms of four qualities: saltiness, sourness, sweetness and bitterness.

We didn't look into this too much but we'd definitely use the same suspension components on all four corners.

By offering the full array of oil-field services, the big four have an advantage over smaller rivals.

Using the climate map as a guide, print out a world map and photographs of four of the world's climate zones.

At that point, more than four million acres of forest and brushland had burned--twice.

The stretch is not long-ten miles northbound and four miles southbound-but it is strategic.

It also questions the evidence that introducing solids at four months prevents coeliac disease and allergies.

For four weeks we'll be dedicating much of our site's online discussions to this international banking debate.

Here are four bad moves that prove the future isn't always bright.

Also unusual in this election was the united stance of the four centre-right parties, which campaigned under the same banner.

It takes three or four years to retrofit or replace a power plant.

The alleviation continued four weeks later, without side effects or infections.

The researchers rated the students on their overall satisfaction with their appearance four separate times over these four years.

The researchers tested four healthy individuals and four amnesic patients.

After you have collected clippings of the leaves you wish to use, gather stems into bunches of four or five.

The heart relies on four valves that act as one-way gates, controlling blood flow out of each of the heart's four chambers.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

four (fɔː)

—n
1.	the cardinal number that is the sum of three and one
2.	a numeral, 4, IV, etc, representing this number
3.	something representing, represented by, or consisting of four units, such as a playing card with four symbols on it
4.	Also called: four o'clock four hours after noon or midnight
5.	cricket
	a. a shot that crosses the boundary after hitting the ground
	b. the four runs scored for such a shot
6.	rowing
	a. a racing shell propelled by four oarsmen pulling one oar each, with or without a cox
	b. the crew of such a shell

—*determiner*
7.	a. amounting to four: four thousand eggs; four times
	b. (as pronoun): four are ready

Related: quadri-, tetra-

[Old English fēower; related to Old Frisian fiūwer, Old Norse fjōrir, Old High German fior, Latin quattuor, Greek tessares, Sanskrit catur]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

four

O.E. feower, from P.Gmc. *petwor- (cf. O.S. fiwar, O.Fris. fiuwer, Frank. fitter-, Du. and Ger. vier, O.N. fjorir, Dan. fire, Sw. fyra), from PIE *qwetwor (cf. Skt. catvarah, Avestan čathwaro, Pers. čatvar, Gk. tessares, L. quattuor, Oscan petora, O.C.S. četyre, Lith. keturi, O.Ir. cethir,

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Welsh petguar). The phonetic evolution of the Germanic forms has not been fully explained. Slang four-eyes "person who wears glasses" first recorded 1874. Four-flusher is 1904, from verb four-flush "to bluff a poker hand, claim a flush with only four cards in the suit" (1896). Four-letter word first attested 1934; four-letter man, however, is recorded from 1923 (as a euphemism for a shit). A four-in-hand (1793) was a carriage with four horses driven by one person; in the sense of "loosely tied necktie" it is attested from 1892. To study The History of the Four Kings (1760, cf. Fr. Livres des Quatre Rois) contains euphemistic slang phrase for "a pack of cards" from the time when card-playing was considered a wicked pastime for students. Slang 4-1-1 is from the telephone number called to get customer information.

COLLAPSE

American Heritage

Idioms & Phrases

four

In addition to the idioms beginning with four, also see between you and me and (the four walls); on all fours.

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