Daily Ancestorquatre-vingt
Quatre-vingt is French for "eighty", literally four twenties; quatre-vingt-dix, four twenties and ten, is ninety, common in written-out dates and ages.
Standard French counts the seventies and nineties on top of sixty and eighty: soixante-dix is 70, quatre-vingts is 80 and quatre-vingt-dix is 90. So quatre-vingt-dix-huit is 98, and a year of mil sept cent quatre-vingt-dix-huit is 1798.
The s is written only when eighty stands at the end, quatre-vingts ans, eighty years, and is dropped before another number, quatre-vingt-trois. In ages at death the number may be followed by environ, about.
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Daily Ancestor. "quatre-vingt." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/french/quatre-vingt. Last checked 2026-10-28.