Is there a word for 'four times as much', analogous to once, twice, and thrice?
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2The next one in the series would have to be quince, right? :) – Robusto Dec 14 '10 at 20:01
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25I don't care if it's not a word, I'm going to start using "frice" just to weird people out. – Chris Dec 14 '10 at 21:00
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15I hereby propose that henceforth "quadrice" and "quince" shall mean four and five times, respectively! "He struck me not twice, not thrice, but quadrice!" "How ghastly! At least he didst not strike thee quince!" "Nay not at that moment, but later in the day he did!" – Claudiu Dec 14 '10 at 21:34
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1Quince is already a fruit. But good thing he didn't throw a quince at you. – Tesserex Dec 14 '10 at 22:39
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12Actually, since once, twice, and thrice come from one, two, and three plus the Old English genitive ending -es (the source of the apostrophe-s for possessive), the correct words would be more along the lines of fource, fifce / fivce, sice, sevence, eightce, nince, tence, etc. – Jon Purdy Dec 14 '10 at 23:40
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8There is a charming book by Alastair Reid, called Ounce, Dice, Trice in which (among many other kinds of wordplay) he creates novel numbering systems. From memory, one is "ounce, dice, trice, quartz, quince, sago, serpent, oculist, novelist, dentist". – Colin Fine Dec 15 '10 at 11:41
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8Why was sago afraid of the serpent? Cause serpent oculist novelist!! Oh wait, darn... – Claudiu Dec 15 '10 at 15:04
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1@ Jon Purdy: That would be a nice answer, if "one" in Old English was "on" or even "one"; however, to my admittedly limited knowledge of O.E., "one" is án, and "once" is ánes. "two" is twá; "twice," twiwa. – Jan 17 '11 at 00:10
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The ones that sound best among these are, in my opinion, fource (as per Jon Purdy's comment), quince (as per Coaudiu's). After that, sice and eightce don't sound very good, but sevence, nince, tence I like. – Andres Riofrio Mar 20 '12 at 21:33
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3Adding -ce to the Anglo Saxon seems to be the rule: an+ce, twa+ce, thri+ce, so since we're speculating... per @JonPurdy, looks like '-ce' becomes a suffix used exactly like '-th' but with irregulars where it's awkward to say: feower+ce is easy 'fource', fif+ce perhaps pronounced 'fiss' since 'f' and 's' sounds seem likely to merge ('fifth' is already 'fith' in causal speech), siex+ce or syx+ce with 's' and 'x' merging almost certainly pronounced 'siss' perhaps spelled 'sice', seofon+ce 'sevence', eahta+ce 'eightce' is easily pronounced 'ates', nigon+ce 'ninece', tien+ce 'tence'. – android.weasel Feb 06 '13 at 12:49
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2@android.weasel: "Fifce he smote me with his axe, eightce with his hammer, yet tence did I with my godly words smite him, and there the demon fell, never to rise again!" I like it - good stuff! – Claudiu Feb 06 '13 at 15:12
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@JonPurdy I didn't notice your Saxon 'twice' tuwa/twiwa comment and I can't find a Saxon 'thrice' from my extensive 30 seconds of websearching. So no 'real' etymology sadly, but the hypothetical game was fun. – android.weasel Mar 13 '13 at 10:00
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Use the fource! – Ev0oD Jan 26 '21 at 13:01
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@Claudiu my 6 year old was talking about number of times he did things and he said - quatrice, quintrice etc. I didn't think these were real words but seemed legit based on the logic, so googled and reached here. His understanding appears to match your statement – V_Singh Mar 05 '22 at 17:08
2 Answers
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Not according to the Oxford dictionaries:
These three are the only words of their type, and no further terms in the series have ever existed.
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2The link is dead. A new link is here: https://www.lexico.com/explore/what-comes-after-once-twice-thrice – Victor Apr 14 '21 at 08:39
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No, there isn't.
What comes after once, twice, thrice?
Nothing! These three are the only words of their type, and no further terms in the series have ever existed.
apaderno
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1The link is dead. A new link is here: https://www.lexico.com/explore/what-comes-after-once-twice-thrice – Victor Apr 14 '21 at 08:38