septenary

English

**English numbers ^(edit)**
← 6	7	8 →
Cardinal: seven Ordinal: seventh Abbreviated ordinal: 7th Latinate ordinal: septenary Adverbial: seven times Multiplier: sevenfold Latinate multiplier: septuple Distributive: septuply Germanic collective: sevensome Collective of n parts: septuplet Greek or Latinate collective: heptad Greek collective prefix: hepta- Fractional: seventh Elemental: septuple Number of musicians: septet Number of years: septennium Number of days: week Quantile: septile

From Middle English septenarie, septenary, from Classical Latin septēnārius (“consisting of seven each”), from septēnus (“seven each; seven at a time”) + -ārius (whence the English suffix -ary). With use as noun compare septēnārius (“line of seven feet; unit of seven parts; period of seven years”).^[1] By surface analysis, septen- +‎ -ary. Doublet of septenar and septenarius.

septenary (not comparable)

Consisting of or containing seven.
Of seventh rank or order.
- 1899 October, W J McGee, “The Beginning of Mathematics”, in American Anthropologist‎^[1], 1(4), page 657:
  ... indeed if further evidence than that of bestial and savage counting were required to show that finger-numeration and the quinary system were not primeval, it would be afforded by the development of the senary-septenary system in so many lands.
Lasting seven years; continuing seven years.
- 1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI):
  Septenary penance.

of seventh rank or order

septenary (plural septenaries)

A group of seven things.
A period of seven years.
- 1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society, published 2012, page 596:
  This idea was based on the doctrine that a man's body changed its character every seven years and that his life was thus made up of ‘septenaries’.
(music) The seven notes of the diatonic scale.