dozen
//ˈdʌzən//
Forms
- Plural
- dozens
Definitions
1.A set of twelve.
- Can I have a dozen eggs, please?
- Pack the shirts in dozens, please.
- There are hundreds of people from each continent in the convention but only a few dozen came from Africa.
2.A large, unspecified number of, comfortably estimated in small multiples of twelve, thus generally implied to be significantly more than ten or twelve, but less than perhaps one or two hundred; many.
- There must have been dozens of examples just on the first page.
- There were dozens and dozens of applicants before the job was posted.
- Jessalyn, known to her family as Jessa, was one of the dozens who were hit.
3.An old English measure of ore containing 12 hundredweight.
- The dozen as a measure for iron ore remained almost completely constant at 12 cwts. during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
4.The number twelve.
Frequency
Overall
Uncommon· #2383
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Uncommon
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Rare
Related words
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English dozen, dozein, doseyne
From Old French dozaine (“a group of twelve”) (Modern French douzaine)
From doze (“twelve”) + -aine (“-ish”)
From Latin duodecim (“twelve”) (from duo (“two”) + decem (“ten”)) + -ana (“-ish”).