Indefinite and fictitious numbers are words, phrases and quantities used to describe an indefinite size, used for comic effect, for exaggeration, as

placeholder name Placeholder names are intentionally overly generic and ambiguous terms referring to things, places, or people, the names of which or of whom do not actually exist; are temporarily forgotten, or are unimportant; or in order to avoid stigmat ...

s, or when precision is unnecessary or undesirable. Other descriptions of this concept include: "non-numerical vague quantifier" and "indefinite hyperbolic numerals".

Umpteen

Umpteen, umteen or umpty is an unspecified but large

number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

, used in a humorous fashion or to imply that it is not worth the effort to pin down the actual figure. Despite the ''-teen'' ending, which would seem to indicate that it lies between 12 and 20, umpteen can be much larger. The oldest reference to "umpty" — in a June 17, 1848 issue of the ''Louisville

Morning Courier Morning is either the period from sunrise to noon, or the period from midnight to noon. In the first definition it is preceded by the twilight period of dawn, and there are no exact times for when morning begins (also true of evening and night) b ...

'' — indicates that at that time it was slang for empty. (Available online to subscribers.) This is confirmed by a humorous short story in the North Carolina ''

Hillsborough Recorder The ''Hillsborough Recorder'' was established by Dennis Heartt in Hillsborough, North Carolina, in February 1820, with the first known edition of the newspaper being issued on March 1, 1820. At the time, there was no newspaper being published west ...

'' of June 30, 1852. (Available online to subscribers.) By 1905, "umpty", in the expression "umpty-seven", had come to imply a multiple of ten. (available online to subscribers) ''Umpty'' came from a verbalization of a dash in

Morse code Morse code is a telecommunications method which Character encoding, encodes Written language, text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code i ...

. "Umpteen", adding the ending ''-teen'', as in "thirteen", is first attested in 1884, (Available online to subscribers.) (available online to subscribers)UmpteenMerriam-Webster
Accessed 2014-06-29. and has become by far the most common form. In Norwegian, ''ørten'' is used in a similar way, playing on the numbers from ''tretten'' (13) to ''nitten'' (19), but often signifying a much larger number. Similarly, though with a larger base, Portuguese has '' milhentos'', which is derived from the words ''mil(har)'' (1000) and the suffix ''-entos'', present in words like ''trezentos'' (300) or ''quinhentos'' (500), roughly meaning "hundred".

Zillion

Words with the

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

''-illion'' (e.g., zillion, gazillion, bazillion, jillion, bajillion, squillion, and others) are often used as informal names for unspecified large numbers by analogy to

names of large numbers Depending on context (e.g. language, culture, region), some large numbers have names that allow for describing large quantities in a textual form; not mathematical. For very large values, the text is generally shorter than a decimal numeric repre ...

such as ''

million 1,000,000 (one million), or one thousand thousand, is the natural number following 999,999 and preceding 1,000,001. The word is derived from the early Italian ''millione'' (''milione'' in modern Italian), from ''mille'', "thousand", plus the ...

'' (10⁶), ''

billion Billion is a word for a large number, and it has two distinct definitions: * 1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million, or (ten to the ninth power), as defined on the short scale. This is now the most common sense of the word in all varieties of ...

'' (10⁹) and ''

trillion ''Trillion'' is a number with two distinct definitions: *1,000,000,000,000, i.e. one million 1,000,000, million, or (ten to the twelfth Exponentiation, power), as defined on the long and short scales, short scale. This is now the meaning in bot ...

'' (10¹²). In

Estonian Estonian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe * Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent * Estonian language * Estonian cuisine * Estonian culture See also

...

, the compound word ''mustmiljon'' ("black million") is used to mean an unfathomably large number. In Hungarian, ''csilliárd'' is used in the same "indefinitely large number" sense as "zillion" in English, and is thought to be a humorous portmanteau of the words ''csillag'' ("star", referring to the vast number of stars) and ''milliárd'' ("billion", cf.

long scale The long and short scales are two powers of ten number naming systems that are consistent with each other for smaller numbers, but are contradictory for larger numbers. Other numbering systems, particularly in East Asia and South Asia, ha ...

). These words are intended to denote a number that is large enough to be unfathomable and are typically used as

hyperbole Hyperbole (; adj. hyperbolic ) is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. In rhetoric, it is also sometimes known as auxesis (literally 'growth'). In poetry and oratory, it emphasizes, evokes strong feelings, and cre ...

or for comic effect. They have no precise value or order. They form ordinals and

fractions A fraction (from , "broken") represents a part of a whole or, more generally, any number of equal parts. When spoken in everyday English, a fraction describes how many parts of a certain size there are, for example, one-half, eight-fifths, thre ...

with the usual suffix ''-th'', e.g. "I asked her for the jillionth time", or are used with the suffix "-aire" to describe a wealthy person.

Sagan

A sagan or sagan unit is a facetious name for a very large number inspired by

Carl Sagan Carl Edward Sagan (; ; November 9, 1934December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is his research on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, including e ...

's association with the phrase "

billions and billions ''Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium'' is a 1997 book by the American astronomer and science popularizer Carl Sagan. The last book written by Sagan before his death in 1996, it was published by Random ...

". It is not to be confused with

Sagan's number Carl Edward Sagan (; ; November 9, 1934December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is his research on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, including e ...

, the number of stars in the

observable universe The observable universe is a Ball (mathematics), spherical region of the universe consisting of all matter that can be observation, observed from Earth; the electromagnetic radiation from these astronomical object, objects has had time to reach t ...

Specific values used as indefinite

In context, a specific numeric value may be used to mean an unspecific quantity. Following are examples. Some words that have a precise numerical definition can be used indefinitely. For example: couple (2),

dozen A dozen (commonly abbreviated doz or dz) is a grouping of twelve. The dozen may be one of the earliest primitive integer groupings, perhaps because there are approximately a dozen cycles of the Moon, or months, in a cycle of the Sun, or year ...

(12),

score SCORE may refer to: *SCORE (software), a music scorewriter program * SCORE (television), a weekend sports service of the defunct Financial News Network *SCORE! Educational Centers *SCORE International, an offroad racing organization *Sarawak Corrido ...

(20);

myriad In the context of numeric naming systems for powers of ten, myriad is the quantity ten thousand ( 10,000). Idiomatically, in English, ''myriad'' is an adjective used to mean that a group of things has indefinitely large quantity. ''Myriad ...

(10,000). When a quantity word is prefixed with an

indefinite article In grammar, an article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the ...

then it is sometimes intended or interpreted to be indefinite. For example, "one million" is clearly definite, but "a million" could be used to mean either a definite (she has a million followers now) or an indefinite value (she signed what felt like a million papers). The title ''The Book of

One Thousand and One Nights ''One Thousand and One Nights'' (, ), is a collection of Middle Eastern folktales compiled in the Arabic language during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as ''The Arabian Nights'', from the first English-language edition ( ...

'' (''lit.'' "a thousand nights and one night") implies a large number of nights. Many book titles use this convention as well; such as ''1,001 Uses for ...''. In

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

, , 108,000 li, means a great distance. In Danish, ''hundrede og sytten'' (" a hundred and seventeen") can mean any arbitrary number. In

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

, 36 and 36,000 are occasionally used as a synonym for "very many". In Hebrew and other Middle Eastern traditions, the number 40 is used to express a large but unspecific number,"Biblical Criticism", ''The Classical Journal'' 36:71:83''ff'' (March 1827
full text
/ref> as in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" () is a folk tale in Arabic added to the ''One Thousand and One Nights'' in the 18th century by its French translator Antoine Galland, who heard it from Syrian storyteller Hanna Diyab. As one of the most popul ...

'', and the

Forty Martyrs of Sebaste The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste or the Holy Forty (Ancient/Katharevousa Greek and Ἅγιοι Τεσσαράκοντα; Demotic: Άγιοι Σαράντα) were a group of Roman soldiers in the Legio XII ''Fulminata'' (Armed with Lightning) whose m ...

.Michael David Coogan, ''A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament: The Hebrew Bible in Its Context'', Oxford, 2008, p. 116 This usage is sometimes found in English as well (for example, "

forty winks {{Short pages monitor