Meaning & use
fifteen
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Meanings
number
The number that comes after fourteen and before sixteen; it is made by adding ten and five.
Grammar: Used before a plural noun, as in 'fifteen students'; it can also stand alone as a pronoun.
Patterns
- fifteen + plural noun
- fifteen of + plural noun
There are fifteen students in the class.
She lived in Paris for fifteen years.
Fifteen of the thirty eggs were broken.
number
The age of a person who has lived for fifteen years.
Grammar: Often used in the phrase 'be fifteen' or 'turn fifteen'.
Patterns
- be fifteen
- turn fifteen
My brother is fifteen.
She will turn fifteen next month.
numbersport
A score or total of fifteen points in a game.
Grammar: Used in sports like tennis, where the first point is called fifteen.
Patterns
- score fifteen
- fifteen points
The tennis player won the first game fifteen to zero.
He scored fifteen points in the final quarter.
Common combinations
- fifteen minutes
- The bus leaves in fifteen minutes.
- fifteen years old
- He is fifteen years old.
- fifteen percent
- Sales increased by fifteen percent.
- fifteen hundred
- The car costs fifteen hundred dollars.
- fifteen to one
- The odds were fifteen to one against him winning.
Word family
- fifteenth adjective
- Coming after the fourteenth and before the sixteenth.
- fifteenfold adjective
- Fifteen times as much or as many.
Commonly confused: fifteen or fifty?
fifteen vs fifty
Fifty means five times ten (50), while fifteen means ten plus five (15). They sound similar but are different numbers.
Practice
Choose the correct sentence.
Choose one answer.
The number 'fifteen' is followed by a plural noun, so 'students' is correct. Option A uses a singular noun, which is wrong. Option C uses the ordinal 'fifteenth', which means the position in a sequence, not the quantity. Option D gives a different number (50).
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “fifteen”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.