Five six-sided, red dice with white pips
9 November 2021
In present day usage, the phrase at sixes and sevens means to be in a state of disorder or confusion. The metaphor underlying the phrase is rather opaque nowadays, but the phrase comes out of dice games and gambling.
The phrase first appears in the late fourteenth century in the form set on six and seven, meaning to bet on a roll of six and seven. It appears in Book 4 of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde (c.1383) in a passage in which the character Pandarus tells Troilus to risk everything for a chance at love and run off with Criseyde:
Forthi tak herte and thynk right as a knyght:
Thorugh love is broken al day every lawe.
Kith now somwhat thi corage and thi myght;
Have mercy on thiself for any awe.
Lat nat this wrecched wo thyn herte gnawe,
But manly sette the world on six and sevene;
And if thow deye a martyr, go to hevene!(Therefore, take heart, and think as a true knight; laws are continuously broken through love. Now show a little of your courage and your strength; have mercy on yourself despite any fear. Don’t let this wretched woe gnaw at your heart, but manfully set the world on six and seven; and if you die a martyr, go to heaven!)
Gambling and risk can result in disorder and chaos, and that idea started to permeate the phrase by the late sixteenth century. We see this use of the phrase in a translation of one of John Calvin’s sermons on Deuteronomy, published in 1583:
We see then howe in this lawe the poore & the rich are taught their lesson. For as for the poore, although they see that one hath great aboundance of corne, that an other hath great plentie of wine: yet ought they not withstanding to beare their penurie patiently, and not to runne and scratch for other mens goods, as if they were left at sixe and seuen.
And by the end of the sixteenth century, being at sixes and sevens meaning being in a state of chaos and disorder was well established. From a 1597 commentary on the reign of King Edward II (1284–1327):
Edward the second of that name, may well bee placed in this ranke, for though hee was faire and well proportioned of body, yet he was crooked and euill fauoured in conditions, for he was so disposed to lightnesse and vanity, that hee refused the company of his Lords and men of honor, and haunted among villaines and vile persons; he delighted in drinking and riot, and loued nothing lesse than to keepe secret his owne counsailes though neuer so important, so that he let the affaires of his kingdome run at sixe and at seuens:
Sources:
Beard, Thomas, trans. The Theatre of Gods Iudgements. London: Adam Islip, 1597, 459. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Calvin, John. “On Thursday the XXX. of Ianuarie, 1556.” Sermons of M. Iohn Calvin upon the Fifth Book of Moses Called Deuteronomie. Arthur Golding, trans. London: Henry Middleton, 1583, 833. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Chaucer, Geoffrey. Troilus and Criseyde. The Riverside Chaucer. Larry D. Benson, ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987, IV.617–23, 546.
Middle English Dictionary, 2019, s.v. six, num.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, six, adj. and n.
Image credit: Pierre Salim, 2013. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.