Forming nouns denoting quality or condition, representing Middle English -tie, -tee, -te (early Middle English -teð), from Old French -te (modern French -té), earlier -tet (-ted):—Latin -itātem, nominative -itās. Such Latin types as bonitātem, feritātem, were in Old French normally reduced to two syllables (bontet, fertet) by elision of the -i- between the two stresses, so that -tet, later -te, became the regular form of the suffix. The final dental still appears in some early adoptions in Middle English, as plenteð, plenteth plenty (c1250, in use till c1600), and is characteristic of the Scottish forms bountith, daintith, and poortith. The reduced form -te, however, is found in words recorded from shortly before or after 1200, such as bonte bounty, cruelte cruelty, debonerte debonairness, deinte dainty (n.), plente plenty, poverte poverty, purte purity, and vilte vileness. Among others which appear somewhat later are certeynte certainty, Cristente Christenty, freelte frailty, novelte novelty, and sotelte subtlety. Varying forms of the stem are found in the words now or formerly represented by beauty, fealty, lealty, †lewty, loyalty, †realty, †rialty, and royalty. From the types lealte, realte, the ending -alte (modern French -auté) was in Old French extended to formations from different stems, and many words of this form (ultimately written with -alty) established themselves in English, as admiralty, casualty, commonalty, †generalty, mayoralty, †principalty, †regalty, severalty, specialty, spiritualty, temporalty. Most of these date from the 14th or early 15th century. An obsolete type of formation is exhibited by curiouste, hid(e)ouste, and joyouste. In Old French certain analogies led to the frequent substitution of -ete for -te, but this form of the suffix is only occasionally adopted in English, as in the obsolete noblete, purete, and simplete; the early sauvete is now represented by safety. Under Latin influence many words in Old French also appear with -ite (modern French -ité) in place of -(e)te; hence English forms in -ity suffix, which in many cases (as in French) have supplanted those in -ty.Although occurring in a large number of words the suffix has shown little productive power in English; evelte, everlastingte, and overte occur in the 14–15th cent., and shrievalty, sheriffalty, have had currency from the beginning of the 16th cent., but such formations are very rare.Such words as faculty, difficulty, honesty, modesty, puberty, represent Latin formations in which the suffix -tās is directly added to a consonant stem. The number of these in English, as in French, is very small.The early form of the suffix (-te, or -tee) remained in use down to the 16th cent., but from the 15th was gradually supplanted by -tie, -tye, and the surviving -ty.

Denoting ‘ten’, forming the second element of the decade numerals from 20 to 90 (in Old English to 120), as twenty, thirty (Old English twentig, þrítig), etc. The Old English -tig (genitive singular -tiges, gen. plural -tiga, -tigra, dative plural -tigum) corresponds to Old Frisian -tich, -tech (plural -tiga, -tega), Middle Dutch -tigh (Dutch -tig), Old Saxon -tig (-thig), -teg, -tich, -tech (Middle Low German and Low German -tig), Old High German -zug, -zuc, -zoch (Middle High German -zec, -zic, German -zig), and is the same as Old Norse tigr, tegr, tøgr, tugr (plural tigir, etc.) and Gothic tigus (plural tigjus), which are not suffixed but remain independent words, as Old Norse tveir tigir, Gothic twai tigjus, twenty. For examples of the Old English forms and syntactical usage, see the various numerals.