eight

[eyt] /eɪt/

noun

a cardinal number, seven plus one.

a symbol for this number, as 8 or VIII.

a set of this many persons or things, as the crew of an eight-oared racing shell.

a playing card the face of which bears eight pips.

Informal.

an automobile powered by an eight-cylinder engine.
an eight-cylinder engine.

adjective

amounting to eight in number.

Origin

before 1000; Middle English eighte, Old English (e)ahta; cognate with Dutch acht, Old Saxon, Old High German ahto (German acht), Old Norse ātta, Gothic ahtau, Latin octō, Greek oktṓ, Old Irish ocht, Welsh wyth, Breton eiz, Tocharian B okt, Lithuanian aštuonì, Albanian tetë, Armenian uth, Persian hasht, Sanskrit aṣṭáu; apparently an old dual in form, but not clear of what

Can be confused

ate, eight.

Examples from the web for eight

The team then tested the responses to three to eight variations of those images from the narrowed list.
The first implant lasts eight hours, the next, a few weeks.
Four of the fleet's eight vessels are high-speed catamarans.
For the warehouse robots sorting our sneaker orders, eight hours.
But the creatures unearthed also include eight taxa previously unknown to science.
When he fans the cards out, demonstrating that after eight shuffles they return to their original order, his colleagues applaud.
Indeed, six of the eight wolves followed human gestures perfectly in more than eight out of ten trials.
Most of the city's work is performed by foreigners, who now outnumber natives eight to one.
The fact is, however committed you are to your job, you can't work eight hours straight without a break.
It's something that everybody needs, and according to the experts, seven to eight hours a day is the normal amount.

British Dictionary definitions for eight

eight

/eɪt/

noun

the cardinal number that is the sum of one and seven and the product of two and four See also number (sense 1)

a numeral, 8, VIII, etc, representing this number

(music) the numeral 8 used as the lower figure in a time signature to indicate that the beat is measured in quavers

the amount or quantity that is one greater than seven

something representing, represented by, or consisting of eight units, such as a playing card with eight symbols on it

(rowing)

a racing shell propelled by eight oarsmen
the crew of such a shell

Also called eight o'clock. eight hours after noon or midnight

(slang) have one over the eight, to be drunk

See figure of eight

determiner

10.

amounting to eight
(as pronoun): I could only find eight

prefixes octa- octo-

Word Origin

Old English eahta; related to Old High German ahto, Old Norse ātta, Old Irish ocht, Latin octō, Greek okto, Sanskrit astau

Word Origin and History for eight

late 14c., eighte, earlier ehte (c.1200), from Old English eahta, æhta, from Proto-Germanic *akhto(u) (cf. Old Saxon ahto, Old Frisian ahta, Old Norse atta, Swedish åtta, Dutch acht, Old High German Ahto, German acht, Gothic ahtau), from PIE *okto(u) "eight" (cf. Sanskrit astau, Avestan ashta, Greek okto, Latin octo, Old Irish ocht-n, Breton eiz, Old Church Slavonic osmi, Lithuanian aštuoni).

Klein calls it "an old dual form, orig. meaning 'twice four.' " For spelling, see fight (v.). Meaning "eight-man crew of a rowing boat" is from 1847. The Spanish piece of eight (1690s) was so called because it was worth eight reals (see piece (n.)). Figure (of) eight as the shape of a race course, etc., attested from c.1600. To be behind the eight ball "in trouble" (1932) is a metaphor from shooting pool.

Slang definitions & phrases for eight

eight

Related Terms

forked-eight, forty-eight

Idioms and Phrases with eight

eight

see: behind the eight ball