vigesimal

adjective

No English definition recorded for this entry.

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /vɪˈd͡ʒɛsɪm(ə)l/ / /vaɪ-/ / /-sə-/

adj

Etymology: From Latin vīgēsimus (“twentieth”), variant of Latin vīcēsimus (“twentieth”), from Latin vīgintī (“twenty”), (from *vīcēnssos, from Proto-Indo-European *wi(h₁)ḱm̥ttós, with the -imus ending of decimus (“tenth”)) + -al (suffix forming an adjective). Compare Latin vīgintī (“twenty”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁wih₁ḱm̥ti, from *dwi(h₁)dḱm̥ti(h₁), *dwi(h₁)dḱm̥ti (“two tens; two decades”).

Occurring in intervals of twenty.
“For indeed, looking at the activity of the historic Pen and Press through this last half-century, and what bulk of History it yields for that period alone, and how it is henceforth like to increase in decimal or vigesimal geometric progression,—one might feel as if a day were not distant, when perceiving that the whole Earth would not now contain those writings of what was done in the Earth, the human memory must needs sink confounded, and cease remembering!— […]”
To the base twenty.
“To go on by hands and feet to 20, and thence to reckon by twenties, is a vigesimal notation. Now though in the larger proportion of known languages, no distinct mention of fingers and toes, hands and feet, is observable in the numerals themselves, yet the very schemes of quinary, decimal and vigesimal notation remain to vouch for such hand-and-foot counting having been the original method on which they were founded.”
“The most remarkable vigesimal scale of numeration is that of the Mexicans. The decimal scale is adopted as far as twenty; that is to say, after ten the primitive digits are repeated, but from twenty onwards the numbers are taken by twenties. Thus 34 is canlahhutukal, literally fourteen and twenty.”

noun

A twentieth part.
“If the years of the incomplete century be divided into twenties, and the excess of twenties resolved into fours, the Dominical Letter will advance three places for every twenty, two places for every four, and six places for every unit of the still outstanding remainder. Hence the Sunday Letter will be found by taking the sum of four numbers, which may be called the centurial, the vigesimal, the quaternial, and the residual.”
“[column 1] The author of this article has also designed an instrumental contrivance for finding Easter by inspection, for any year from the beginning of the Christian era down to the end of hundredth century, in old style or new. […] [column 2] Around the fixed ring here described is a rotary ring bearing the numbers from 1 to 19 (the golden numbers) twice repeated, and at the left of these the vigesimals, arranged in regular order.”
“vigesimal”, in Merriam-Webster.com Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
“vigesimal”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.
“vigesimal”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.