1747: eleven (and twelve) Sep 26, 2019

The word 'eleven' comes from a root meaning 'one left', or 'one after'. This is not a reference to numerals—that wouldn't make sense anyway—or subtraction, but rather just from an old way of speaking. Most of the numbers follow a base-ten pattern, but 'eleven' from the Old English 'enleofan' (literally "one leaving") follows a more colloquial pattern. Old English kennings were euphemistic idioms made from compounding nouns, so like how "darotha laf" (lit. "spear leavings") connoted 'retreating warriors', the roots for 'eleven' and 'twelve' both just meant "one/two after ten". This is the same for most Germanic languages. There will be more on this tomorrow.

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