The building blocks of English
Affixes
sex(i)-
Six.
Latin sex, six.
A sextet is a group of six people playing music or singing together; sextuplets are a set of six children born at one birth; a sexcentenary is the six-hundredth anniversary of a significant event; a sexennial is an event recurring every six years, or a period of six years; something sextuple consists of six parts or things; For sextillion, see the entry Number words. A sextant, used for taking altitudes in navigation and surveying, is so named because the measuring arc covers one-sixth of a full circle.
Related words are formed from Latin sexaginta, sixty: sexagesimal refers to reckoning by sixtieths or a number base of sixty, which survives in angular measurement and in hours and minutes; a sexagenarian is a person in his or her sixties; Sexagesima (literally ‘sixtieth day’) is the second Sunday before Lent.
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