This is the 16046th most frequent Russian word.
пятым
The Russian word "пятым" means "fifth" in its instrumental case, masculine or neuter singular form.
The word 'пятым' is used here as an ordinal number in the instrumental case, referring to the order in which the subject arrived.
Он пришёл на встречу пятым.
He came to the meeting fifth.
The word 'пятым' here denotes the ordinal position of the subject within a list or ranking in the instrumental case.
Пятым элементом таблицы был водород.
The fifth element of the table was hydrogen.
In this expression, 'пятым колесом' metaphorically indicates a surplus or unnecessary entity in a situation.