dozen

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”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈdʌzən/

• Audio (US):

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• Rhymes: -ʌzən

dozen (plural dozens or dozen)

1. A set of twelve.

   Can I have a dozen eggs, please?

   I ordered two dozen doughnuts.

   There are hundreds of people form each continent in the convenction but only a few dozen came from Africa.

   Pack the shirts in dozens, please.

2. (as plural only, always followed by of) 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.

   • 2012 March, Lee A. Groat, “Gemstones”, in American Scientist‎^[1], volume 100, number 2, archived from the original on 14 June 2012, page 128:

     Although there are dozens of different types of gems, among the best known and most important are diamond, ruby and sapphire, emerald and other gem forms of the mineral beryl, chrysoberyl, tanzanite, tsavorite, topaz and jade.

3. (metallurgy) An old English measure of ore containing 12 hundredweight.
   • 1957, H.R. Schubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry, page 139:

     The dozen as a measure for iron ore remained almost completely constant at 12 cwts. during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

4. (bingo) The number twelve.

• doz

• (followed by of: a large number of): a great deal of, a lot of, heaps of, hundreds of, loads of, lots of, many, millions of, scores of, scads of, thousands of

• (antonym(s) of “followed by of: a large number of”): few

• gross

• Donze, zendo, zoned

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• Rhymes: -oːzən

dozen

1. plural of doos

• zoden, zonde

Related to doze.

dozen

1. (transitive) To stupefy.
2. (intransitive) To become stupefied.