5 in Roman Numerals

5 in Roman numerals at a glance

Roman numeral

V

Lowercase

v

Letters

1

Parts

V

Subtractive pairs

None

In words

five

Latin name

quinque

How V is built

Roman numerals are written one decimal place at a time, from the largest place to the smallest. Converting each digit of 5 separately and joining the pieces gives V:

Reading it back, left to right:

• V = 5 → running total 5

The rules V follows

• Largest to smallest. V uses only the symbol V (1 character in all), and the values never increase from left to right except inside a subtractive pair.
• No subtraction needed. None of the digits of 5 is a 4 or a 9, so V is purely additive: just add the symbol values.
• No repeats. Every symbol in V appears once in a row, which is why the numeral stays short.

Where you will see V

• Clock and watch faces. V marks the 5 o’clock position.
• The U.S. Constitution. Amendments are often cited in Roman numerals: Amendment V guarantees due process and the right not to incriminate yourself (part of the Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791).
• Monarchs and popes. Regnal numbers use Roman numerals, as in Henry V of England, the victor at Agincourt in 1415.
• The modern Summer Games. They are officially numbered by Olympiad; the Games of the V Olympiad belong to 1912: Stockholm.
• Championship games. Pro football numbers its championship game with Roman numerals, starting from game I in January 1967. Game V was played in early 1971.
• A single character. Unicode has a dedicated symbol for V: Ⅴ (U+2164), mainly so East Asian text can set the numeral in one character cell. For ordinary writing, use the plain letters.
• Lists and outlines. Book chapters, acts of a play, outline headings and the preface pages of many books (in lowercase: v) are numbered this way.

Numbers near 5 in Roman numerals

Need a different value? Use the Roman numeral converter, or browse the Roman numerals chart.