NINE

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Old English nigon | Indo-european newn | Sanskrit nava | Greek, Attic ENNEA hennea | Latin novem | Archaic Latin nevin | Italian and Portuguese nove | French neuf | Spanish nueve | Catalan nou | Provençal nòu | Romanian nouă | Rumansh nov | Sardinian nòbe | Old Germanic niwun | Dutch negen | German neun | Danish and Norwegian ni | Swedish nio | Icelandic níu | Old Slavic deveti (< neveti) | Russian девять devyat’ | Czech devět | Slovenian devét | Polish dziewięć | Old Chinese (pron.) kyeu | Chinese jiǔ. | Semitic root T-Sh-‘ |Ancient Egyptian [psḏ-] pest | Akkadian tishe | Arabic تِسْعة tisha | Hebrew תשע tésha | Maltese disgħa | Amharic zethain (pron. zäṭäñ).

The number nine holds a special reverence and meaning in many cultures and religions for representing power or luck. Nine is the highest single-digit number, and it symbolizes completeness as the end of a cycle before returning to the number one. Nine (九 pinyin jiǔ) is considered a good number in Chinese culture because it sounds the same as the word longlasting. The center of Beijing has eight roads leading to the ninth, the city center. The Forbidden City has 9,999 rooms. Nine, as the highest single-digit number (in base ten), symbolizes completeness in the Bahá’í Faith. The number 9 is revered in Hinduism and considered a complete, perfected and divine number because it represents the end of a cycle in the decimal system. To the Hebrews, the ninth letter of their alphabet is Tet, which symbolizes completeness. In the Christian angelic hierarchy there are 9 choirs of angels in heaven and Christ died at the ninth hour. Important Buddhist rituals usually involve nine monks. There are nine judges on the Supreme Court, and nine players on a baseball team, the human gestation period is nine months and cats are said to have nine lives.  The origin of the phrase to be on cloud nine, meaning that one is blissfully happy, is traced back to the United States in the 1050’s.

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