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'' — 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'' 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, 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).
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 ...
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 (20); 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, , 108,000 li, means a great distance.
In Danish, ''hundrede og sytten'' (" a hundred and seventeen") can mean any arbitrary number.
In French, 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'', and the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste.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").
In Hungarian there are several expressions meaning "very many". A traditional expression is ''mint égen a csillag'' ("as many as the stars" in the sky). Sometimes specific numbers (e.g., 36,000 or 60,000) are used like in Danish or in French. ''Kismillió'' ("little million") is somewhat old, but a few decades ago it was still in use. From the end of the 20th century ''csillió'' began to spread. ''Csillió'' is a new word: it may be the result of combining the words ''csillag'' (star), and ''millió'' (million). Its enhanced version is ''csilliárd'' combining ''csillag'' and ''milliárd'' (billion).
In Irish, 100,000 (''céad míle'') is used, as in the phrase ''céad míle fáilte'', "a hundred thousand welcomes" or Gabriel Rosenstock's poetic phrase ("my hundred thousand loves").
In Japanese, ,
8000 8000 may refer to:
In general
* 8000 (number)
* A.D. 8000, a year in the 8th millennium CE
* 8000 BCE, a year in the 8th millennium BC
* A.D. 8000s, a decade, century, millennium of the 9th millennium CE
* 8000s BCE, a decade, century, millennium o ...
, is used: (''lit.'' 8,000 herbs) means a variety of herbs and (''lit.'' 8,000 generations) means eternity.
In
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
, ( 600) was used to mean a very large number, perhaps from the size of a Roman cohort. The modern word ''million'' derives from an Italian
augmentative
An augmentative (abbreviated ) is a morphological form of a word which expresses greater intensity, often in size but also in other attributes. It is the opposite of a diminutive.
Overaugmenting something often makes it grotesque and so in so ...
of the Latin word for thousand, .
In Polish, ''tysiąc pięćset sto dziewięćset'' ("one thousand five hundred one hundred nine hundred") is used, to refer to an indefinitely large number.
In
Scottish Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic (, ; Endonym and exonym, endonym: ), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic language, Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongs ...
, 100,000 (''ceud mìle'') is used to mean a great number, as in the phrase ''ceud mìle fàilte'', "a hundred thousand welcomes."
In Swedish, or is used ( "fifty-eleven" and "seventy-eleven", although never actually intended to refer to the numbers 61 and 81).
In Thai, ร้อยแปด (''roi paed)'' means both 108 and miscellaneous, various, plentiful.
In Welsh, ''cant a mil'', literally "a hundred and thousand", is used to mean a large number in a similar way to English "a hundred and one". It is used in phrases such as ''cant a mil o bethau i'w wneud'' "a hundred and one things to do" i.e. "many, many things to do".
The number 10,000 is used to express an even larger approximate number, as in Hebrew ''revâvâh'', rendered into Greek as , and to English '' myriad''. Similar usage is found in the
East Asian
East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...
or (''lit.'' 10,000; ), and the
South Asian
South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...
lakh
A lakh (; abbreviated L; sometimes written lac) is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand (100,000; scientific notation: 105). In the Indian 2, 2, 3 convention of digit grouping, it is written as 1,00,000. F ...
(''lit.'' 100,000).''
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...