Word.ws English Dictionary

forty-niner

forty-niner is the alternative form of 49er.

Meaning of 49er

Noun

49er (plural 49ers)

  1. A class of two-handed double-trapeze dinghy (from its maximum length of 16 feet, approx. 4900 millimetres).
  2. (historical) A miner or other person who took part in the California Gold Rush of 1849.
    • The old prospector told them how, in the days of the 49ers, […] the Mexicans had been treated in a way they had practically never forgiven. The land was free. Discovery and appropriation of a mining claim gave title, provided it was staked out and a notice scratched on a tin plate affixed to the...1922, Allen Chaffee, Unexplored!
    Synonyms:
    argonaut
  3. A player for the San Francisco 49ers, an NFL team.
  4. A student or player on a sports team at California State University, Long Beach (more commonly known as “Long Beach State”, founded in 1849).
  5. A student or player on a sports team at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (more commonly known as “Charlotte” in a sports context).

Forms of forty-niner

pluralforty-niners

Questions about forty-niner

What is forty-niner the alternative form of?
Forty-niner is the alternative form of 49er.

Words near forty-niner in the dictionary

  1. forty-fourths
  2. forty-leben
  3. forty-legs
  4. forty-leven
  5. forty-nine
  6. forty-niner
  7. forty-niners
  8. forty-ninth
  9. forty-ninth parallel
  10. forty-ninths
  11. forty-one

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: forty-niner (page history and authors); 49er (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “forty-niner.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/forty-niner. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.