dozen
pronunciation
How to pronounce dozen in British English:
UK [ˈdʌzn]
How to pronounce dozen in American English:
US [ˈdʌzn]
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- Noun:
- the cardinal number that is the sum of eleven and one
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- Adjective:
- denoting a quantity consisting of 12 items or units
Word Origin
- dozen
- dozen: [13] Dozen traces its ancestry back to the Latin word for ‘twelve’, duodecim. This was a compound formed from duo ‘two’ and decem ‘ten’. This gradually developed in the postclassical period via *dōdece to *doze, which, with the addition of the suffix -ēna, produced Old French dozeine, source of the English word.=> duodenum
- dozen (n.)
- c. 1300, from Old French dozaine "a dozen," from doze (12c.) "twelve," from Latin duodecim "twelve," from duo "two" + decem "ten" (see ten). The Old French fem. suffix -aine is characteristically added to cardinals to form collectives in a precise sense ("exactly 12," not "about 12"). The dozens "invective contest" (1928) originated in slave culture, the custom probably African, the word probably from bulldoze (q.v.) in its original sense of "a whipping, a thrashing."
Example
- 1. He altered several dozen entitlement formulas and health-care payments .
- 2. He chose several dozen new tax cuts and tax increases .
- 3. One recent chilly afternoon , only a few dozen spectators showed up .
- 4. A bsf can produce several dozen liters of clean water in an hour .
- 5. On the positive side , there are several dozen drugs in clinical trials .