The phraseat sixes and sevensmeansin a state of total confusion or disarray.
Based on the language ofdicing, the phrase was originallyto set (all) on six and seven. It denotedthe hazard of one’s whole fortune, orcarelessness as to the consequences of one’s actions. From this earlier association with reckless behaviour came the idea that things in disorder wereat sixes and sevens.
Thepipson a die, and later on playing cards, used to be numbered in an approximation toFrench:ace(which is still used in card-playing),deuce,trey(both of which have persisted),quatre,cinq(ue)andsice.According to a popular explanation,to set (all) on six and sevenis an alteration of another phrase,to set (all) on cinque and sice, which meantto gamble on the highest numbers, and figurativelyto behave recklessly. For example, the Scottish chronicler and poet William Stewart (floruit 1499-1541) wrote, inThe Buik of the Croniclis of Scotland(1535):
And greit folie to seton synk and syss.
Andthe English playwright and satirist Ulpian Fulwell (1546?-1586?) wrote, in the play titledLike Will to Like(1568):
All that I had is now lost at the dice,
My sword, my buckler, andall at sink and cise.
The popular explanation is that, in the course of time, the numberssixandsevenwere substituted forcinqueandsice, perhaps because the literal meanings of the original words were forgotten:cinque, pronouncedsink, would have been incorrectly anglicised assix, sosicebecameseven, and the whole phrase gradually assumed its familiar form.
Those who spread this rather far-fetched theory content themselves with merely reproducing, and presenting as a fact, what is only a supposition in theOxford English Dictionary(1stedition, 1911). But the phraseto set (all) on six and sevenseems to have been completely independent fromto set (all) on cinque and sice. The latter is attested in theearly 16thcentury, whereas the former is first recorded in thelate14thcentury, whenthe English poet Geoffrey Chaucer(circa 1342-1400) wrote, inTroilus and Criseyde:
Kith now somwhat thi corage and thi myght;
Have mercy on thiself for any awe.
Lat nat this wrecched wo thyn herte gnawe,
Butmanlysette the world on six and sevene;
And if thow deye a martyr, go to hevene!
translation:
Show now somewhat your courage and strength. Fear not, but have mercy on yourself. Let not this wretched woe gnaw upon your heart, butstake the world like a man on the cast of the dice, and if you die as a martyr, go to heaven!
It is impossible that themore recentphrase,to set (all) on cinque and sice, is the origin of theearlierto set (all) on six and seven.
Interestingly, another obsolete phrase,to set (all) on seven, meantto make a desperate venture,to rush to battle. For example, in theAlliterative Morte Arthure(King Arthur’s Death), written about1400, there is:
With that steelen brandhe stroke off his hed.
Sterenly in that stourhe strikes another.
Thushe settes on sevenwith his seker knightes;
Whiles sixty were served sone sesed they never;
And thus at this joiningthe giauntes are destroyed,
And at that journee for-joustedwith gentle knightes.
translation:
And with his steel sword he struck off his head.
Stoutly into that struggle he strikes at another,
Andsets on sevenwith his stalwart knights –
Till sixty were so served, ceased they never.
And thus in that skirmish the giants are slain,
Laid low in that battle by lordly knights.
The phraseto set (all) on sevenwas originally used with reference to the throwing ofa mainin the game ofhazard, a game atdicein which the chances were complicated by a number of arbitrary rules. The following description of this game is fromTheEncyclopædia Britannica(1892):
The player or “caster” calls a “main” (that is, any number from five to nine inclusive). He then throws with two dice. If he “throws in,” or “nicks,” he wins the sum played for from the banker or “setter.” Five is a nick to five, six and twelve are nicks to six, seven and eleven to seven, eight and twelve to eight, and nine to nine. If the caster “throws out” by throwing aces, or deuce, ace (called crabs), he loses. When the main is five or nine the caster throws out with eleven or twelve; when the main is six or eight he throws out with eleven; when the main is seven he throws out with twelve. If the caster neither nicks nor throws out, the number thrown is his “chance,” and he keeps on throwing till either the chance comes up, when he wins, or till the main comes up, when he loses. When a chance is thrown, the “odds” for or against the chance are laid by the setter to the amount of the original stake.
To set (all) on six and seven,to set (all) on cinque and siceandto set (all) on sevenwere probably independent phrases. They all impliedabandon to chance, as in the following note from the1542translation of Erasmus’s apophthegms bythe English schoolmaster and playwright Nicolas Udall (1504-56):
There is a prouerbe, omnem iacere aleam, to cast all dyce by whiche is signified,to sette all on sixe & seuen, & at all auentures to ieoperd assaiyng [= to risk attempting] the wilde chaunce of fortune, bee it good bee it badde.
Similarly, in his Latin-EnglishThesaurus Linguae Romanae & Britannicae(1573), Thomas Cooper wrote:
Aleam omnem iácere. Sueton. To put in aduenture:to set at sixe and seuen.
AndRandle Cotgravewrote, inA Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues(1611):
Desesperade: feminine. A kind of mournefull song.
Iouër à la desesperade. To set his whole rest, orset all on sixes, and sevens; to throw at all.
