lexicow

number

/ˈnʌmbər//ˈnʌmbə/·noun
One by one the cubes come down and land on the saucer with a small dry knock, each settling a little apart from the last — one, then a pause, then another, then another. They never merge; you could point to each and say which it is, and count them off to the last and know exactly how many sit there. Take one away and the tally drops by exactly one. What counts here is not how much sugar, but how many separate blocks of it have been set down.
|

Definition

A number is how many there are of separate things you can count one by one — people, errors, marbles, days. Each unit is distinct, so you tally them rather than weigh or measure them, and the result is exact: three, forty, a thousand. It goes with 'many' and 'fewer' (a large number, a small number). From Latin numerus. Set it against amount, which is for a single uncountable mass. To say 'a number of' is a quiet way to say 'several' without fixing exactly how many.

Examples

  • A growing number of students now study online rather than on campus.
  • The number of errors fell sharply once the team began to scrutinize each draft.
  • Only a small number of species can adapt to such bitter cold.

Collocations

a number of·a large number of·the total number·a growing number of·number of times

Synonyms

quantity·count·total·tally·sum

See also

Word family

numerous (adjective)·numerical (adjective)·enumerate (verb)

In TOEFL & IELTS

Number goes with countable nouns and takes many/fewer: 'the number of mistakes', 'a number of reasons'. The trap is swapping it with amount, which is for uncountable mass nouns (amount of water, not number of water; number of bottles, not amount of bottles) — the same logic behind fewer vs less. 'A number of' also reads as 'several', useful for hedging in academic writing.