Seven is considered to have magical powers, like the number 3 or 13. It is closely linked with the bible because the Catholic Church has Seven Sacraments and of course the:

Seven deadly sins

And the less known Seven heavenly virtues The seven people on Gilligan’s Island and the Seven Dwarfs are supposed to be modern personifications of the seven deadly sins.

In the Middle East during Biblical times, seven was a number symbolic of completeness. Similarly, seventy-seven or seventy times seven was used to symbolize a sort of über-completeness.

Some well-known and less-well-known Bible verses employing this number are:

It should be noted that seven is also the most likely number to appear as the sum of two randomly thrown and statistically unbiased dice.

This is easily seen when you make a table of all the possible outcomes of the experiment, as follows:


 1+1=2  2+1=3  3+1=4  4+1=5  5+1=6  6+1=7
 1+2=3  2+2=4  3+2=5  4+2=6  5+2=7  6+2=8
 1+3=4  2+3=5  3+3=6  4+3=7  5+3=8  6+3=9
 1+4=5  2+4=6  3+4=7  4+4=8  5+4=9  6+4=10
 1+5=6  2+5=7  3+5=8  4+5=9  5+5=10 6+5=11
 1+6=7  2+6=8  3+6=9  4+6=10 5+6=11 6+6=12

As you can see the most common value is the diagonal of sevens. This is because 7 is the median of the set of all possible results.

Im sure theres a much neater mathematical proof of this, but at this hour I'm afraid a flaky exhaustve proof will have to do...

SHICHI nana (seven)

ASCII Art Representation:

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Character Etymology:

Originally written as a simple cross (like '+'), but with a longer lateral line than the character for ten, to represent and mean a line cutting another. It was one of serveral characters used to phonetically to express seven, and was probably especially favorored since it roughtly resembled a bent finger under a fist, and old way of signaling seven.

A Listing of All On-Yomi and Kun-Yomi Readings:

on-yomi: SHICHI
kun-yomi: nana nana(tsu) nano na

Nanori Readings:

Nanori: shi shiっ na hichi

English Definitions:

  1. SHICHI, nana(tsu), na, nana, nano: seven.

Unicode Encoded Version:

Character Index Numbers:

New Nelson: 3
Henshall: 30

Unicode Encoded Compound Examples:

(shichigatsu): July.
七日 (nanoka): seventh day (of the month).
七番 (nanaban): seven nights.

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Seven is also a card game for two or more players. A person who gets rid of her cards first, wins. The rules are as follows:

Five cards are dealt for each player.

One card is turned on the table from the deck. If the card is seven or ace it has to be changed.

A player puts a card from her hand on the table. The card has to be the same suit as the previous card on the table. If a player doesn't have same suit she has to take cards from the deck until she gets the required suit. However, a player may want to pretend that she doesn't have the suit if she wants to take more cards. There are no punishments for this.
But no more than than three cards can be picked up in the turn. If a player doesn't have the correct suit after pickings she must pass her turn on this round.
Exception: A card with the rank of seven can be put on the table at any time regardless of suit. A seven can change the suit. A player who puts a seven on the table can order what is the suit that should be played in the next turn.

Ace: If a player puts an ace on the table all other players must pick up one punitive card from the deck.

Cards with the same ranks: A player can put many cards on the table if and only if the ranks of the cards are same.

A rule at the end of the game: An ace or a seven cannot be the last card which is put on the table from the hand. If the last card in the hand is an ace or a seven, one more card must be picked up from the deck.

If the deck ever runs out of cards, the cards from the table - except the very last card - must be suffled and reuse as a new deck.

In many Eastern traditions, seven is given special attention because it is the number of orifices, or openings in the human head, to whit:

2 eyes

2 nostrils

2 ears

1 mouth

Seven, therefore, may be a funky number becuase of this fact, or this fact may be a rationalisation of seven as a funky number.

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Sev"en (?), a. [OE. seven, seoven, seofen, AS. seofon, seofan, seofen; akin to D. zeven, OS., Goth., & OHG. sibun, G. sieben, Icel. sjau, sjo, Sw. sju, Dan. syv, Lith. septyni, Russ. seme, W. saith, Gael. seachd, Ir. seacht, L. septem, Gr. , Skr. saptan. &root;305. Cf. Hebdomad, Heptagon, September.]

One more than six; six and one added; as, seven days make one week.

Seven sciences. See the Note under Science, n., 4. -- Seven stars Astron., the Pleiades. -- Seven wonders of the world. See under Wonders. -- Seven-year apple Bot., a rubiaceous shrub (Genipa clusiifolia) growing in the West Indies; also, its edible fruit. -- Seven-year vine Bot., a tropical climbing plant (Ipom&oe;a tuberosa) related to the morning-glory.

 

© Webster 1913.


Sev"en, n.

1.

The number greater by one than six; seven units or objects.

Of every beast, and bird, and insect small, Game sevens and pairs. Milton.

2.

A symbol representing seven units, as 7, or vii.

 

© Webster 1913.

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