Definition of "thirteener"

Boomers played cassettes in their cars and popularized FM radio. Thirteeners love their compact disks. Today's electronics industry is abuzz with talk of the new digital technology that awaits Millennial teenagers.

1991, William Strauss, Neil Howe, “The Past as Prologue”, in Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069, New York, N.Y.: William Morrow and Company, part III (The Future), page 352

Raise the tough issues and questions that Thirteeners struggle with in the real world. […] The speaker should be transparent about his or her own life struggles and problems. This creates credibility and helps Thirteeners identify their own problems.

1995, Kevin Graham Ford, with Jim Denney, “How to Reach Us, Part 2: Process Evangelism”, in Jesus for a New Generation: Putting the Gospel in the Language of Xers, Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, page 205

At last they were all chosen [for the watch] but me; and it was the chief mate's next turn to choose; though there could be little choosing in my case since I was a thirteener, and must, whether or not, go over to the next column, like the odd figure you carry along when you do a sum in addition.A figurative use, referring to the narrator being the last person to be chosen.

1849, Herman Melville, “He is Put into the Larboard Watch; Gets Sea-sick; and Relates Some Other of His Experiences”, in Redburn: His First Voyage. […], 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], page 56

[T]he following description of a thorough-going College Whist-player is too good to lose. […] How he used to bring out forgotten thirteeners at the end of the hand! And how the majesty of your kings and queens was forced to bow down before his dirty little sixes and sevens!

1870 December 23, “Hash”, in The Harvard Advocate, volume X, number VI, Cambridge, Mass.: Students of Harvard College, page 89, column 1

When you hold the best trump and partner the next best, and right-hand adversary holds the only other trump, you may force partner by leading a thirteener, if necessary, so as to divide your trumps; and he should, when he holds a high trump, always play it on your thirteener, unless it is evident that you cannot hold the best trump.

1895, Fisher Ames, “The Card to Lead”, in A Practical Guide to Whist by the Latest Scientific Methods […], 7th edition, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, page 37

[A. C.] King once hit a "thirteener" in a match on the school ground. Probably the ball got lost for a minute or two in long grass, or perhaps it was badly overthrown. But, however it happened, there stands the score in the official book, a "13." clearly got in one fell swoop by the hard-hitting King.

1908 August 29, George A. Wade, “Notable Cricket Feats by Schoolboys”, in The Boy’s Own Paper, volume XXX, number 48 (number 1546 overall), London: “Boy’s Own Paper” Office, […], page 765, column 1

Upon their return from Ireland, vvhere they collected ſome thirteeners for vvhich they had not given the intrinſic value, ſhillings, they made their appearance at Tenby, in Pembrokeſhire, on a pretended tour of pleaſure.

1782, Genuine Memoirs of the Lives of George and Joseph Weston, who were Executed September 3d. 1782. The First for Forgery; the Latter for Shooting at John Davis, and Wounding Him in Cock-Lane: , pages 9–10

["]A gintleman once said to me: 'Here, Pat, yer sowl, you look hungry. Here's a thirteener for yez; go and get drunk wid it.' Och, no, your honour, he wasn't an Irish gentleman; it was afther mocking me he was, God save him." […] On my asking the boy if he felt hurt at the mockery, he answered, slily, with all his air of simplicity, "Sure, thin, wasn't there the shillin'! For it was a shillin' he gave me, glory be to God. No, I niver heard it called a thirteener before, but mother has.["]

1851, Henry Mayhew, “Of the Street-seller of Crackers and Detonating Balls”, in London Labour and the London Poor; […], volume I (The London Street-folk. Book the First.), London: [George Woodfall], page 434, column 1

[T]he woman banged a shilling down upon the table, crying, "Arrah, my honey, with this thirteener, won't I sit in the gallery, and won't your Royal Grace give me a curtsey—and won't I give your Royal Highness a howl and a hiss into the bargain!"

1877 October, [Henry Barton Baker], “Our Old Actors. Mrs. [Dorothea] Jordan.”, in Temple Bar: A London Magazine for Town and Country Readers, volume LI, London: Richard Bentley & Son, […]; New York, N.Y.: Willmer and Rogers; Paris: Galignani, page 182

[T]he peculiar Latin thirteener so popular in the Middle Ages, and best known by the lines attributed to Mapes—Meum est propositum in taberna mori [My purpose is to die in a tavern].The line is from a poem commonly called the Goliardic “Confession” (written c. 1163). Even though it is attributed by Saintsbury to Walter Map (1130 – c. 1209 or 1210), it is now generally thought to be by an anonymous poet known as the Archpoet (c. 1130 – c. 1165).

1910, George Saintsbury, “Origins of Lines and Stanzas”, in Historical Manual of English Prosody, London: Macmillan and Co., […], book IV (Auxiliary Apparatus), page 325

By the third decade of the eighteenth century, the syllabic line that really threatened to stay was an uncouth thing of thirteen syllables (counting the obligative feminine terminal), with a caesura after the seventh syllable: […] The order of the stresses in the thirteener went in jumps and jolts and varied from line to line. The only rule (followed only by purists) was that the seventh, caesural, syllable must bear a beat.

1964, Vladimir Nabokov, “The Origination of Metrical Verse in Russia”, in Notes on Prosody […] (Bollingen Series; LXXIIa), New York, N.Y.: Bollingen Foundation, page 35

The lines are almost uniformly decasyllabic (though the syntax breaks up the iambs early in the sequence), and there are some notable exceptions which mainly cluster toward the end of the final sonnet (one line is a thirteener).

1992, Peter Quartermain, “‘Not at All Surprised by Science’: Louis Zukofsky’s First Half of ‘A’ – 9”, in Disjunctive Poetics: From Gertrude Stein and Louis Zukofsky to Susan Howe (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, page 74

The term "poulter's measure"—a poulter was a poultry retailer—was originally a joke-name based on the fact that if one bought a dozen eggs in Tudor England a thirteenth was free, like the later "baker's dozen." Thirteener, or poulter's measure, meant couplets (two rhymed lines), the first with six accents or strong beats, the second with seven (often with twelve beats, then fourteen). […] The resembles the standard ballad rhythm, as in Samual Coleridge's famous Rime of the Ancient Mariner: "Water, water, everywhere / And not a drop to drink."

1999, Alan Hager, “The Narrative Source of Romeo and Juliet”, in Understanding Romeo and Juliet: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents (Literature in Context), Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Group, page 70

[…] I would first agree with [Earl] Wasserman that the last line ["[shapes] Which walk upon the sea, and chaunt melodiously"] alludes to Jesus walking on water, the point of the allusion being the kerygmatic expression of a form of transcendence, which is more or less specified by the way the other hemistych of this remarkably balanced thirteener – "and chaunt melodiously" – recalls how it is on the breath of enamored air and song that all the vigorously launched members and voices of this scene are sustaining their courses.

2011, Edward T. Duffy, “Recounting Reverses, Recovering the Initiative: Act II of Prometheus Unbound”, in The Constitution of Shelley’s Poetry: The Argument of Language in Prometheus Unbound (Anthem Nineteenth-century Series), London; New York, N.Y.: Anthem Press, page 144

There are six summits in Colorado above thirteen thousand feet named "Grizzly." Four of them are in the highest two hundred summits. This one was once rated a Fourteener, but new surveys demoted it so that it is now the highest Thirteener.

1992, Mike Garratt, Bob Martin, “Grizzly Peak (13,988 feet), Garfield Peak (13,780 feet)”, in Colorado’s High Thirteeners (A Climbing & Hiking Guide), 3rd edition, Boulder, Colo.: Johnson Books, page 38

Few who venture into this region know that the area is a superb place to go after thirteener ski descents.

2020, Ben Conners, Brian Miller, “Cronin Peak—Northeast Face”, in Climbing and Skiing Colorado’s Mountains: Over 50 Select Ski Descents, 2nd edition, Lanham, Md.: Falcon Guides, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, page 169