four to one

[jiang]

Dear teachers,

His uncle brought him four five-pound notes, four to one.

Could you please explain the meaning of it?

Looking forward to hearing from you.
Thank you in advance.

Jiang

[jamiep]

Can you add some context?

[FreeToyInside]

The first part of your sentence is clear, the 'four to one' part really means nothing to me in this sentence.

There are two contexts I can think of where I'd expect to hear 'xx to one'. One is reporting scores of competitive sports, as in:

A: How did your baseball game go?
B: They beat us four to one/They won four to one. (or any number to any number)

The other is in the context of how many times more (usually) people there are compared to a different group of people, and is mostly used in conjunction with the verb 'to outnumber', (and most likely 'any number to one') as in:

"In our class, girls outnumber boys almost three to one." (There are almost three times more girls than boys)
"They outnumbered us two to one." (Probably talking about a group of people in a fight or battle - there were twice as many people on their side as on our side)


(not a teacher, just a language lover)

[jiang]

Hi jamiep,

Thank you very much for your reply. The context is about gamble on horse. When the horse he bet really won his uncle brought him four five-pound notes, four to one.

[bhaisahab]

Hi jamiep,

Thank you very much for your reply. The context is about gamble on horse. When the horse he bet really won his uncle brought him four five-pound notes, four to one.

You should have put the full the context in the first post. It means that the horse won the race at 4 to 1, he bet one five pound note on the horse and he got four five pound notes back.

[jiang]

Hi bhaisahab,

Thank you very much for your explanation. I do not know anything about horse gambling so I thought it is language issue. Now I know the information of horse gambling is important for you to understand the sentence.

Jiang