forty

"Forty" is the cardinal number that comes after thirty-nine and before forty-one. Written as 40, it is mainly used in the ordinary ways numbers are used: to count people and things, to give an age, to name a year or length of time, or to show prices, percentages, and measurements. You might hear it in sentences like "forty pages," "forty years old," "forty percent," or "forty miles per hour."

The number also has a strong place in religious and traditional storytelling. In the Bible, for example, it often appears in scenes that involve waiting, testing, travel, or change, such as forty days of rain or forty years in the wilderness. Because of that history, "forty" can sometimes feel like more than a precise count. In some contexts, it suggests a long or meaningful period, even when the speaker is thinking as much about the idea as about the exact number.

Beyond that, "forty" also appears in a few fixed expressions. To "catch forty winks" means to take a short nap. People may also talk about being "over forty" when speaking generally about age. In everyday English, though, the word is usually just a straightforward number rather than a symbol.

So whether you are counting money, talking about someone's age, describing a time span, or referring to an old story, "forty" can work as both an exact number and, at times, a number with added cultural meaning.