quintuplet
/ˈkwɪntjʊˌplɪt
/ /kwɪnˈtjuːplɪt /noun
1 (usually quintuplets) Each of five children born at one birth.Commotion over multiple births - quadruplets, quintuplets, sextuplets - isn't new....
- Before a similar hot start last season, he probably was best known as the player whose wife gave birth to quintuplets.
- A story about the birth of quintuplets shouldn't send all expectant couples scurrying to buy 5 cribs.
2 Music A group of five notes to be performed in the time of three or four.There was this very specific attention to every hemidemisemiquaver and how quintuplets were going to inter-relate with this and how the texture of the cymbalom would work with the mandolin versus the harps and so on....
- At one point, triplets and septuplets in the l.h. are pitted against quintuplets and sextuplets in the r.h.
Origin
Late 19th century: from quintuple, on the pattern of words such as triplet.