The English language has a number of words that denote specific or approximate quantities that are themselves not numbers. [1] Along with numerals, and special-purpose words like some, any, much, more, every, few, several, and all, they are quantifiers. Quantifiers are a kind of determiner and occur in many constructions with other determiners, like articles: e.g., two dozen or more than a score. Scientific non-numerical quantities are represented as SI units.
| Name | Quantity | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Brace | 2 | An old term of venery, meaning means ‘a pair of [some animal, especially birds] caught in the hunt’. Also a measure of length, originally representing a person's outstretched arms. |
| Couple | 2 | A set of two of items of a type |
| Century | 100 | Primarily denotes one hundred years, but occasionally used, especially in the context of sport, to refer to something consisting of one hundred, as in a 100-mile race or 100 points. |
| Dozen | 12 | A collection of twelve things or units from Old French dozaine "a dozen, a number of twelve" in various usages, from doze (12c.) [2] |
| Baker's dozen | 13 | From the notion that a baker would include an extra item in a batch of twelve so as not to be accused of shortchanging a customer |
| Half-dozen | 6 | Six of something |
| Decade | 10 | Primarily denotes ten years, but occasionally refers to ten of something |
| Duo | 2 | In reference to people engaged in an endeavor together, as in musical performance (other words denote three or more people in the same context: trio, quartet, etc.) |
| Grand | 1,000 | Slang for a thousand of some unit of currency, such as dollars or pounds. |
| Gross | 144 | Twelve dozen |
| Score | 20 | Presumably from the practice, in counting sheep or large herds of cattle, of counting orally from one to twenty, and making a score or notch on a stick, before proceeding to count the next twenty. [3] [4] A distance of twenty yards in ancient archery and gunnery. [5] |
| Threescore | 60 | Three score (3x20) |
| Large | 1,000 | Slang for one thousand |
| Myriad | 10,000 | Loosely refers to a very large quantity |
| Pair | 2 | Often in reference to identical objects |
| Trio | 3 | Referring to people working or collaborating especially in musical performance |
| Quartet | 4 | Referring to people working or collaborating especially in musical performance; also: Quintet, Sextet, Septet, Octet |
| Great gross | 1,728 | A dozen gross (12x144) |
| Hat-trick | 3 | The achievement of, a generally positive feat, three times in a game, or another achievement based on the number three [6] |
| Small gross | 120 | Ten dozen (10x12) [7] |
| Great hundred | 120 | Ten dozen (10x12) or six score (6x20), also known as long-hundred or twelfty [8] [9] |
| Ton | 100 | One hundred points in the sport of Darts. |
| None, nil, zilch | 0 | Zero |
| Lakh | 100,000 | Indian numbering system: One hundred thousand |
| Crore | 10,000,000 | Indian numbering system: ten million |
| Arab | 1,000,000,000 | Indian numbering system: billion |
| Kharab | 100,000,000,000 | Indian numbering system: hundred billion |
| Nil | 1013 | Indian numbering system: ten trillion |
| Padma | 1015 | Indian numbering system: quadrillion |
| Shankh | 1017 | Indian numbering system: hundred quadrillion |
| Mole | ~602 sextillion | 6.02214076×1023, widely used in chemistry for the amount of substance |
