eleventy

English

Etymology

From eleven +‎ -ty, from Old English hundendleftiġ (also spelled hund-endleofantiġ, hund-endlyftiġ, and hund-ælleftiġ). See twelfty for more. Popularized in the 20th century by J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɪˈlɛvənti/

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

Numeral

eleventy

1. (informal) The number 110, 11 × 10.

   Compounds with other numerals: eleventy-one (111), eleventy-six (116), eleventy first (one-hundred and eleventh), etc.

   • 1955 (1974), JRR Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, pages 43, 54:

     [Bilbo] announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday
     […]
     “Today is my one hundred and eleventh birthday: I am eleventy-one today!”

   • 1980, Janet Caudle, State and Interstate Fishery Jurisdiction: Problems and Progress : Proceedings of a Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina, 1979 : October 29-31, 1979, page 149:

     without having to go back through the thousand and eleventy-three days to alter the plan

   • 2007, Doug Lowe, Networking for Dummies, page 174:

     Eight-Oh-Two-Dot-Eleventy Something [= 802.11a, 802.11b, etc.]

2. (colloquial) An indefinite large number.
   • May 1921, Margaret Wilson, “A Little Boy's Utopia”, in The Atlantic Monthly, page 670:

     No grown-up people, no babies, no girls. It was a world of boys, eleventy and a hundred strong.

   • 2005, Robert M Sapolsky, Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals, page 19:

     People used to think that the first eleventy letters of the DNA message would comprise Gene 1.

   • 2012 July 3, Marina Hyde, “A lesson in Olymp-o-nomics”, in The Guardian:

     According to a study by me, this generates a multibillion facepalm for the UK economy, making everyone who considers it at least eleventy hundred pounds unhappier.

Related terms

• eleventeen
• teenty
• twelfty

Translations

one hundred and ten

• Bulgarian: сто и десет (sto i deset)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 一百一十

• Finnish: satakymmenen
• French: onzante (fr) m or f (rare)
• Manchu: ᡝᠮᡠ
  ᡨᠠᠩᡤᡡ
  ᠵᡠᠸᠠᠨ (emu tanggū juwan)
• Polish: sto dziesięć
• Russian: сто десять (sto desjatʹ)

indefinite large number

• Catalan: milanta (ca)
• Swedish: femtioelva (sv)