femten

Femten is the cardinal numeral for the number 15 in Norwegian Bokmål and Danish. The Swedish form is femton. The word is used in counting, ages, dates, and other numerical references, and is typically written as a single word. In pronunciation, it is commonly realized with a mid-to-high front vowel and a final nasal consonant, though exact pronunciation varies by dialect.

Origins and cognates: Femten belongs to the North Germanic numeral system. Its closest forms are Danish femten and Norwegian femten, while Swedish uses femton. Older Norse sources show forms such as fimtán. The similarities across these languages reflect a shared historical development of the teens in the Scandinavian linguistic area.

Usage and examples: As a decimal numeral, femten denotes the integer 15 and occurs in everyday language for counting, ages (for example, han er femten år gammel), and dates (the 15th day of a month). The ordinal in Norwegian is femtende, used when indicating the 15th position. The term is generally not used for any specialized technical meaning beyond the standard cardinal number.