6 in Roman Numerals

6 in Roman numerals at a glance

Roman numeral

VI

Lowercase

vi

Letters

2

Parts

V · I

Subtractive pairs

None

In words

six

Latin name

sex

How VI is built

Roman numerals are written one decimal place at a time, from the largest place to the smallest. Converting each digit of 6 separately and joining the pieces gives VI:

Reading it back, left to right:

• V = 5 → running total 5
• I = 1 → running total 6

The rules VI follows

• Largest to smallest. VI uses the symbols V and I (2 characters in all), and the values never increase from left to right except inside a subtractive pair.
• No subtraction needed. None of the digits of 6 is a 4 or a 9, so VI is purely additive: just add the symbol values.
• No repeats. Every symbol in VI appears once in a row, which is why the numeral stays short.

Where you will see VI

• Clock and watch faces. VI marks the 6 o’clock position.
• The U.S. Constitution. Amendments are often cited in Roman numerals: Amendment VI guarantees a speedy, public jury trial and the help of a lawyer (part of the Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791).
• Monarchs and popes. Regnal numbers use Roman numerals, as in King George VI, the father of Elizabeth II.
• The modern Summer Games. They are officially numbered by Olympiad; the Games of the VI Olympiad belong to 1916: Berlin (cancelled because of World War I).
• Championship games. Pro football numbers its championship game with Roman numerals, starting from game I in January 1967. Game VI was played in early 1972.
• A single character. Unicode has a dedicated symbol for VI: Ⅵ (U+2165), 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: vi) are numbered this way.

Numbers near 6 in Roman numerals

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