linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

, more precisely in

traditional grammar Traditional grammar (also known as classical grammar) is a framework for the description of the structure of a language or group of languages. The roots of traditional grammar are in the work of classical Greek and Latin philologists. The forma ...

, a multiplier is a word that counts how many times its object should be multiplied, such as ''single'' or ''double''. They are contrasted with distributive numbers. In English, this

part of speech In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech ( abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are ...

is relatively marginal, and less recognized than

cardinal numbers In mathematics, a cardinal number, or cardinal for short, is what is commonly called the number of elements of a set. In the case of a finite set, its cardinal number, or cardinality is therefore a natural number. For dealing with the case ...

and

ordinal numbers In set theory, an ordinal number, or ordinal, is a generalization of ordinal numerals (first, second, th, etc.) aimed to extend enumeration to infinite sets. A finite set can be enumerated by successively labeling each element with the leas ...

English

In English native multipliers exist, formed by the suffix ''-fold'', as in ''onefold'', ''twofold'', ''threefold''. However, these have largely been replaced by ''single'', ''double'', and ''triple'', which are of Latin origin, via French. They have a corresponding distributive number formed by suffixing ''-y'' (reduction of Middle English ''-lely'' > ''-ly''), as in ''singly''. However, the series is primarily used for the first few numbers; ''quadruple'' and ''quintuple'' are less common, and ''hextuple'' and above are quite rare. For larger multiples a cardinal number and a counter are used instead, such as "five portions" or "a portion five times the normal size" instead of "a quintuple portion". In

espresso Espresso (, ) is a concentrated form of coffee produced by forcing hot water under high pressure through finely ground coffee beans. Originating in Italy, espresso has become one of the most popular coffee-brewing methods worldwide. It is cha ...

servings, the Italian ''solo'', ''doppio'', and ''triplo'' are sometimes used, with '' doppio'' being most common. The Latin multipliers ''simplex'', ''duplex'', ''triplex'' etc. have occasional use in English, primarily in technical use, though '' duplex'' is more common.

English

See also