English numerals

English numerals are words for numbers used in English-speaking cultures.

Cardinal numbers

Cardinal numbers refer to the size of a group.

0	zero (nought)
1	one	11	eleven	10	ten
2	two	12	twelve	20	twenty
3	three	13	thirteen	30	thirty
4	four	14	fourteen	40	forty (no "u")
5	five	15	fifteen (note "f", not "v")	50	fifty (note "f", not "v")
6	six	16	sixteen	60	sixty
7	seven	17	seventeen	70	seventy
8	eight	18	eighteen (only one "t")	80	eighty (only one "t")
9	nine	19	nineteen	90	ninety (note the "e")

If a number is in the range 21 to 99, and the second digit is not zero, one should write the number as two words separated by a hyphen.

21	twenty-one
25	twenty-five
32	thirty-two
58	fifty-eight
64	sixty-four
79	seventy-nine
83	eighty-three
99	ninety-nine

In English, the hundreds are perfectly regular, except that the word hundred remains in its singular form regardless of the number preceding it (nevertheless, one may on the other hand say "hundreds of people flew in", or the like)

100	one hundred
200	two hundred
…	…
900	nine hundred

So too are the thousands, with the number of thousands followed by the word "thousand"

1,000	one thousand
2,000	two thousand
…	…
10,000	ten thousand
11,000	eleven thousand
…	…
20,000	twenty thousand
21,000	twenty-one thousand
30,000	thirty thousand
85,000	eighty-five thousand
100,000	one hundred thousand or one lakh (Indian English)
999,000	nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand (British English) nine hundred ninety-nine thousand (American English)
1,000,000	one million
10,000,000	ten million or one crore (Indian English)

In American usage, four-digit numbers with non-zero hundreds are often named using multiples of "hundred" and combined with tens and ones: "One thousand one", "Eleven hundred three", "Twelve hundred twenty-five", "Four thousand forty-two", or "Ninety-nine hundred ninety-nine." In British usage, this style is common for multiples of 100 between 1,000 and 2,000 (e.g. 1,500 as "fifteen hundred") but not for higher numbers.

Americans may pronounce four-digit numbers with non-zero tens and ones as pairs of two-digit numbers without saying "hundred" and inserting "oh" for zero tens: "twenty-six fifty-nine" or "forty-one oh five". This usage probably evolved from the distinctive usage for years; 'nineteen-eighty-one'. It is avoided for numbers less than 2500 if the context may mean confusion with time of day: "ten ten" or "twelve oh four."

Intermediate numbers are read differently depending on their use. Their typical naming occurs when the numbers are used for counting. Another way is for when they are used as labels. The second column method is used much more often in American English than British English. The third column is used in British English, but rarely in American English (although the use of the second and third columns is not necessarily directly interchangeable between the two regional variants). In other words, the British dialect can seemingly adopt the American way of counting, but it is specific to the situation (in this example, bus numbers).

	Common British vernacular	Common American vernacular	Common British vernacular
	"How many marbles do you have?"	"What is your house number?"	"Which bus goes to the high street?"
101	"A hundred and one."	"One-oh-one." Here, "oh" is used for the digit zero.	"One-oh-one."
109	"A hundred and nine."	"One-oh-nine."	"One-oh-nine."
110	"A hundred and ten."	"One-ten."	"One-one-oh."
117	"A hundred and seventeen."	"One-seventeen."	"One-one-seven."
120	"A hundred and twenty."	"One-twenty."	"One-two-oh", "One-two-zero."
152	"A hundred and fifty-two."	"One-fifty-two."	"One-five-two."
208	"Two hundred and eight."	"Two-oh-eight."	"Two-oh-eight."
334	"Three hundred and thirty-four."	"Three-thirty-four."	"Three-three-four."

Note: When writing a cheque (or check), the number 100 is always written "one hundred". It is never "a hundred".

Note that in American English, many students are taught not to use the word and anywhere in the whole part of a number, so it is not used before the tens and ones. It is instead used as a verbal delimiter when dealing with compound numbers. Thus, instead of "three hundred and seventy-three", one would say "three hundred seventy-three". For details, see American and British English differences.

For numbers above a million, there are two different systems for naming numbers in English (for the use of suffixes such as kilo- for a thousand, mega- for a million, milli- for a thousandth, etc. see SI units):

• the long scale (decreasingly used in British English) designates a system of numeric names in which a thousand million is called a ‘‘milliard’’ (but the latter usage is now rare), and ‘‘billion’’ is used for a million million.
• the short scale (always used in American English and increasingly in British English) designates a system of numeric names in which a thousand million is called a ‘‘billion’’, and the word ‘‘milliard’’ is not used.

Number notation	Power notation	Short scale	Long scale
1,000,000	106	one million	one million
1,000,000,000	109	one billion a thousand million	one milliard a thousand million
1,000,000,000,000	1012	one trillion a thousand billion	one billion a million million
1,000,000,000,000,000	1015	one quadrillion a thousand trillion	one billiard a thousand billion
1,000,000,000,000,000,000	1018	one quintillion a thousand quadrillion	one trillion a million billion

The numbers past a trillion, in ascending powers of ten, are as follows: quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion, septillion, octillion, nonillion, decillion, undecillion, duodecillion, tredecillion, quattuordecillion, and quindecillion (that's 10 to the 48th, or a one followed by 48 zeros) The highest number listed on Robert Munafo's table, is a milli-millillion. That's 10 to the 3000003rd.

The googolplex has often been nominated as the largest named number in the world. If a googol is ten to the one hundredth, then a googolplex is one followed by a googol of zeroes.

Although British English has traditionally followed the long-scale numbering system, the short-scale usage has become increasingly common in recent years. For example, the UK Government and BBC websites use the newer short-scale values exclusively.

Here are some approximate composite large numbers in American English:

Quantity	Written	Pronounced
1,200,000	1.2 million	one point two million
3,000,000	3 million	three million
250,000,000	250 million	two hundred fifty million
6,400,000,000	6.4 billion	six point four billion
23,380,000,000	23.38 billion	twenty-three point three eight billion

Often, large numbers are written with (preferably non-breaking) half-spaces or thin spaces separating the thousands (and, sometimes, with normal spaces or apostrophes) instead of commas—to ensure that confusion is not caused in countries where a decimal comma is used. Thus, a million is often written 1 000 000.

In some areas, a point (. or ·) may also be used as a thousands' separator, but then, the decimal separator must be a comma.

Specialized numbers

A few numbers have special names (in addition to their regular names):

• 0: has several other names, depending on context:
  • zero: formal scientific usage
  • naught / nought: mostly British usage
  • aught: Mostly archaic but still occasionally used when a digit in mid-number is 0 (as in "thirty-aught-six", the .30-06 Springfield rifle cartridge and by association guns that fire it)
  • oh: used when spelling numbers (like telephone, bank account, bus line)
  • nil: in general sport scores, British usage ("The score is two-nil.")
  • nothing: in general sport scores, American usage ("The score is two to nothing.")
  • null: used technically to refer to an object or idea related to nothingness. The 0th aleph number ($\aleph _{0}$) is pronounced "aleph-null".
  • love: in tennis (origin disputed, often said to come from French l'œuf, "egg")
  • zilch, nada (from Spanish), zip: used informally when stressing nothingness; this is true especially in combination with one another ("You know nothing—zero, zip, nada, zilch!")
  • nix: also used as a verb

• 1:
  • ace: in certain sports and games, as in tennis or golf, indicating success with one stroke, and the face of a die or playing card with one pip

• 2:
  • couple
  • brace
  • pair
  • deuce: the face of a die or playing card with two pips
• 3:
  • trey: the face of a die or playing card with three pips
• 4:
  • cater: (rare) the face of a die or playing card with four pips

• 5:
  • cinque: (rare) the face of a die or playing card with five pips

• 6:
  • half a dozen
  • sice: (rare) the face of a die or playing card with six pips
• 12: a dozen (first power of the duodecimal base), used mostly in commerce
• 13: a baker's dozen
• 20: a score (first power of the vigesimal base), nowadays archaic; famously used in the opening of the Gettysburg Address: "Four score and seven years ago..." The Number of the Beast in the King James Bible is rendered "Six hundred threescore and six".
• 50: half a century, literally half of a hundred, usually used in cricket scores.
• 100: a century, also used in cricket scores.
• 120: a great hundred (twelve tens; as opposed to the small hundred, i.e. 100 or ten tens), also called small gross (ten dozens), both archaic; also sometimes referred to as duodecimal hundred
• 144: a gross (a dozen dozens, second power of the duodecimal base), used mostly in commerce
• 1000: a grand, colloquially used especially when referring to money, also in fractions and multiples, e.g. half a grand, two grand, etc.
• 1728: a great gross (a dozen gross, third power of the duodecimal base), used mostly in commerce
• 10,000: a myriad (a hundred hundred), commonly used in the sense of an indefinite very high number
• 100,000: a lakh (a hundred thousand), loanword used mainly in Indian English
• 10,000,000: a crore (a hundred lakh), loanword used mainly in Indian English
• 10¹⁰⁰: googol (1 followed by 100 zeros), used in mathematics; not to be confused with the name of the company Google (which was originally a misspelling of googol)
• 10^googol googolplex (1 followed by a googol of zeros)
• 10^googolplex googolplexplex (1 followed by a googolplex of zeros)

Combinations of numbers in most sports scores are read as in the following examples:

• 1–0    British English: one nil; American English: one-nothing, one-zip, or one-zero
• 0–0    British English: nil-nil, or nil all; American English: zero-zero or nothing-nothing, (occasionally scoreless or no score)
• 2–2    two-two or two all; American English also twos, two to two, even at two, or two up.)

Naming conventions of Tennis scores (and related sports) work a lot differently to most other sports.

A few numbers have specialised multiplicative numerals expresses how many fold or how many times: once, twice, thrice.

Negative numbers

The name of a negative number is the name of the corresponding positive number preceded by "minus" or (American English) "negative". Thus -5.2 is "minus five point two" or "negative five point two". For temperatures, Americans colloquially say "below" —short for "below zero"— so a temperature of -5° is "five below".

Ordinal numbers

See also: Numbering of storeys in buildings

Ordinal numbers refer to a position in a series. Common ordinals include:

0th	zeroth or noughth (see below)	10th	tenth
1st	first	11th	eleventh
2nd	second	12th	twelfth (note "f", not "v")	20th	twentieth
3rd	third	13th	thirteenth	30th	thirtieth
4th	fourth	14th	fourteenth	40th	fortieth
5th	fifth	15th	fifteenth	50th	fiftieth
6th	sixth	16th	sixteenth	60th	sixtieth
7th	seventh	17th	seventeenth	70th	seventieth
8th	eighth (only one "t")	18th	eighteenth	80th	eightieth
9th	ninth (no "e")	19th	nineteenth	90th	ninetieth

Zeroth only has a meaning when counts start with zero, which happens in a mathematical or computer science context.

Ordinal numbers such as 21st, 33rd, etc., are formed by combining a cardinal ten with an ordinal unit.

21st	twenty-first
25th	twenty-fifth
32nd	thirty-second
58th	fifty-eighth
64th	sixty-fourth
79th	seventy-ninth
83rd	eighty-third
99th	ninety-ninth

Higher ordinals are not often written in words, unless they are round numbers (thousandth, millionth, billionth). They are written using digits and letters as described below. Here are some rules that should be borne in mind.

• The suffixes -th, -st, -nd and -rd are occasionally written superscript above the number itself.
• If the tens digit of a number is 1, then write "th" after the number. For example: 13th, 19th, 112th, 9,311th.
• If the tens digit is not equal to 1, then use the following table:

If the units digit is:	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
write this after the number	th	st	nd	rd	th	th	th	th	th	th

• For example: 2nd, 7th, 20th, 23rd, 52nd, 135th, 301st.

These ordinal abbreviations are actually hybrid contractions of a numeral and a word. 1st is "1" + "st" from "first". Similarly, we use "nd" for "second" and "rd" for "third". In the legal field and in some older publications, the ordinal abbreviation for "second" and "third" is simply, "d"

• For example: 42d, 33d, 23d.

Any ordinal name that doesn't end in "first", "second", or "third", ends in "th".

Dates

There are a number of ways to read years. The following table offers a list of valid pronunciations and alternate pronunciations for any given year of the Gregorian calendar.

Year	Most common pronunciation method	Alternative methods
1 BC	(The year) One BC	1 Before Christ (BC) 1 before the Common era (BCE)
1	(The year) One	Anno Domini (AD) 1 1 of the Common era (CE) In the year of Our Lord 1
101	One-oh-one	One hundred (and) one
235	Two thirty-five	Two-three-five Two hundred (and) thirty-five
911	Nine eleven	Nine-one-one Nine hundred (and) eleven
999	Nine ninety-nine	Nine-nine-nine Nine hundred (and) ninety-nine Triple nine
1000	One thousand	Ten hundred 1K Ten aught Ten oh
1004	One thousand (and) four	Ten-oh-four
1010	Ten ten	One thousand (and) ten
1050	Ten fifty	One thousand (and) fifty
1225	Twelve twenty-five	One-two-two-five One thousand, two hundred (and) twenty-five Twelve-two-five
1900	Nineteen hundred	One thousand, nine hundred Nineteen aught
1901	Nineteen oh-one	Nineteen hundred (and) one One thousand, nine hundred (and) one Nineteen aught one
1919	Nineteen nineteen	Nineteen hundred (and) nineteen One thousand, nine hundred (and) nineteen
1999	Nineteen ninety-nine	Nineteen hundred (and) ninety-nine One thousand, nine hundred (and) ninety-nine
2000	Two thousand	Twenty hundred Two triple-oh
2001	Two thousand (and) one	Twenty oh-one Twenty hundred (and) one two double oh-one
2009	Two thousand (and) nine	Twenty oh-nine Twenty hundred (and) nine two double oh-nine
2015	Twenty fifteen	Two thousand (and) fifteen

Fractions and decimals

In spoken English, ordinal numbers are also used to quantify the denominator of a fraction. Thus 'fifth' can mean the element between fourth and sixth, or the fraction created by dividing the unit into five pieces. In this usage, the ordinal numbers can be pluralized: one seventh, two sevenths. The sole exception to this rule is division by two. The ordinal term 'second' can only refer to location in a series; for fractions English speakers use the term 'half' (plural 'halves').

Here are some common fractions (partitive numerals):

1/16	one-sixteenth
1/10 or 0.1	one-tenth
1/8	one-eighth
2/10 or 0.2	two-tenths
1/4	one-quarter or (mainly American English) one-fourth
3/10 or 0.3	three-tenths
1/3	one-third
3/8	three-eighths
4/10 or 0.4	four-tenths
1/2	one half
6/10 or 0.6	six-tenths
5/8	five-eighths
2/3	two-thirds
7/10 or 0.7	seven-tenths
3/4	three-quarters or three-fourths
8/10 or 0.8	eight-tenths
7/8	seven-eighths
9/10 or 0.9	nine-tenths
15/16	fifteen-sixteenths

Alternatively, and for greater numbers, one may say for 1/2 "one over two", for 5/8 "five over eight", and so on. This "over" form is also widely used in mathematics. (This form is not common in British English.)

Numbers with a decimal point may be read as a cardinal number, then "and", then another cardinal number followed by an indication of the significance of the second cardinal number (not common in British English); or as a cardinal number, followed by "point", and then by the digits of the fractional part. The indication of significance takes the form of the denominator of the fraction indicating division by the smallest power of ten larger than the second cardinal. This is modified when the first cardinal is zero, in which case neither the zero nor the "and" is pronounced, but the zero is optional in the "point" form of the fraction.

• For example:
  • 0.002 is "two thousandths" (mainly U.S.); or "point zero zero two", "point oh oh two", "nought point zero zero two", etc.
  • 3.1416 is "three point one four one six"
  • 99.3 is "ninety-nine and three tenths" (mainly U.S.); or "ninety-nine point three".

In English the decimal point was originally printed in the center of the line (0·002), but with the advent of the typewriter it was placed at the bottom of the line, so that a single key could be used as a full stop/period and as a decimal point. In many non-English languages a full-stop/period at the bottom of the line is used as a thousands separator with a comma being used as the decimal point.

• Fractions together with an integer are read as follows:
  • 1 1/2 is "one and a half"
  • 6 1/4 is "six and a quarter"
  • 7 5/8 is "seven and five eighths"

A space is required between the whole number and the fraction; however, if a special fraction character is used like "½", then the space can be done without, e.g.

• • 9 1/2
  • 9½

Whether to use digits or words

According to most copy editors and English teachers, the numbers zero to nine inclusive should be "written out" – meaning instead of "1" and "2", one would write "one" and "two".

Example: "I have two apples." (Preferred)

Example: "I have 2 apples."

After "nine", one can head straight back into the 10, 11, 12, etc., although some write out the numbers until "twelve".

Example: "I have 28 grapes." (Preferred)

Example: "I have twenty-eight grapes."

Another common usage is to write out any number that can be expressed as one or two words, and use figures otherwise.

Examples:

"There are six million dogs." (Preferred)

"There are 6,000,000 dogs."

"That is one hundred twenty-five oranges."

"That is 125 oranges." (Preferred)

Numbers at the beginning of a sentence should also be written out.

The above rules are not always used. In literature, larger numbers might be spelled out. On the other hand, digits might be more commonly used in technical or financial articles, where many figures are discussed. In particular, the two different forms should not be used for figures that serve the same purpose; for example, it is inelegant to write, "Between day twelve and day 15 of the study, the population doubled."

Empty numbers

Colloquial English has a small vocabulary of empty numbers that can be employed when there is uncertainty as to the precise number to use, but it is desirable to define a general range: specifically, the terms "umpteen", "umpty", and "zillion". These are derived etymologically from the range affixes:

• "-teen" (designating the range as being between 10 and 20)
• "-ty" (designating the range as being in one of the decades between 20 and 100)
• "-illion" (designating the range as being above 1,000,000; or, more generally, as being extremely large).

The prefix "ump-" is added to the first two suffixes to produce the empty numbers "umpteen" and "umpty": it is of uncertain origin. There is a noticeable absence of an empty number in the hundreds range.

Usage of empty numbers:

• The word "umpteen" may be used as an adjective, as in "I had to go to umpteen stores to find shoes that fit." It can also be used to modify a larger number, usually "million", as in "Umpteen million people watched the show; but they still cancelled it."
• "Umpty" is not in common usage. It can appear in the form "umpty-one" (parallelling the usage in such numbers as "twenty-one"), as in "There are umpty-one ways to do it wrong." "Umpty-ump" is also heard, though "ump" is never used by itself.
• The word "zillion" may be used as an adjective, modifying a noun. The noun phrase normally contains the indefinite article "a", as in "There must be a zillion sites on the World Wide Web."
• The plural "zillions" designates a number indefinitely larger than "millions" or "billions". In this case, the construction is parallel to the one for "millions" or "billions", with the number used as a plural count noun, followed by a prepositional phrase with "of", as in "Out in the countryside, the night sky is filled with zillions of stars."
• Empty numbers are sometimes made up, with obvious meaning: "squillions" is obviously an empty, but very large, number; a "squintillionth" would be a very small number.
• Some empty numbers may be modified by actual numbers, such as "four zillion", and are used for jest, exaggeration, or to relate abstractly to actual numbers.
• Empty numbers are colloquial, and primarily used in oral speech or informal contexts. They are inappropriate in formal or scholarly usage.

See also Placeholder name.

Usage notes

While there are a number of "rules" about ways of expressing numbers, the essential requirement must always be to avoid ambiguity. Different authorities do not always agree; for example the following sentence was found in a perfectly respectable document. "It has sold 10,000,000 copies. It was number 21 on a recent list of the 100 most important non-fiction books of the 20th century." This sentence is perfectly clear, and it is unlikely that any reader would change his attitude toward the author because of these "errors".

The usage of either a comma or a point in a number provides a degree of ambiguity too. The number 1,000 would be read as being one thousand in the US and the UK, and as Exactly One in most of Europe and elsewhere. Modern usage in ISO 31-0 shows either the point or the dot to be used for the "Exactly One" form, and for spaces to be used in very large or very small numbers, like in 1 000 000 or in 0.000 000 005 and so on.

With the rise of computers, use of the name of the letter "O" to signify both the letter "O" and numeric zero has become ambiguous. If numbers are typed into the computer as spoken, problems may arise if the numbers are used for anything other than simple display. If a house number is shown on screen as "12O" instead of "120", no harm is done. But if this error is made in a telephone number to be dialed, or in calculations, problems will arise. The simplest solution is always to say "zero" or "nought".

Numeric dates, as normally abbreviated, are ambiguous: the forms "mm/dd/yy", "dd/mm/yy" (where "yy" may be a 2-digit or 4-digit year), are used in different places; in the US, the former is used, and is reflected in the spoken convention for dates there, for example 10/04/05 would be read "October Fourth, Two Thousand Five", whereas in Britain, the latter naming convention is used, and would be spoken as "(The) Tenth of April, Two Thousand and Five". The international standard, with the form YYYY-MM-DD avoids ambiguity and 2005-07-09 always means 2005 July the 9th. This date is sometimes written without spaces or hyphens, 20050709.

See also

• Indefinite and fictitious numbers
• List of numbers
• Long and short scales
• Names of large numbers
• Natural number
• Number names

External links

• English Numbers - explanations, exercises and number generator (cardinal and ordinal numbers)
• Write out numbers - automatic numbers translation to English and Russian languages