عِشْرُونَTwenty; twice ten: applied alike to a masc. and a fem.: you say عِشْرُونَرَجُلًا [Twenty men], and عِشْرُونَ ٱمْرَأَةً [Twenty women: the noun following it being in the accus. case as a specificative]: it is decl. with و and ى [like a pl. formed by the addition of و and ن]; and when you prefix it to another noun, making it to govern the latter in the gen. case, you drop the ن, and say, عِشْرُو زَيْدٍ [The twenty of Zeyd], and عِشْرُوكَ [Thy twenty], and عِشُرِىّ [My twenty], changing the و into ى [in this last case], because of the letter following it, and these incorporating: so says Ks; but most disallow this mode of prefixing in the case of a decimal number [of this kind], [It signifies also Twentieth.] It is not a pl. of عَشَرَةٌ, or عَشْرٌ, [or perhaps the right reading is عِشْرٌ, as may be inferred from what will be presently added: but first it should be observed that if it were pl. of عَشَرَةٌ, or of عَشْرٌ, it would signify at least three times ten: some hold it to be a pl. of عِشْرٌ, saying, as عِشْرٌ signifies camels' coming to water on the ninth day, they do not say عِشْرَانِ [for twenty], but they say عِشْرُونَ, (in the K, لَمْ يُقَلْ عِشْرَيْنِ وَقَالُواعِشْرِينَ: but the correct reading seems to be لَمْيَقُولُوا: TA: [in the CK it is more incorrect, لميقل عِشْرِينَ وقالوا عِشْرَيْنِ:]) making eighteen days to be عِشْرَانِ, and the nineteenth and twentieth a portion of the third عِشْر; and so, [regarding the portion as a whole,] forming the pl. عِشْرُونَ; agreeably with a well-known license, which allows the calling two and a part of the third a pl: this is the opinion of Kh and IDrd and some others: but J and most of the lexicologists hold that عِشْرُونَ is not a pl. of عَشَرَةٌ nor of عِشْرٌ nor of any other word, and their opinion I hold to be correct, applying as it does to the other similar nouns of number.
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