Dozen

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Dozen

Dozen is another word for the number

Number

A number is a mathematical object used in counting and measurement. A notational symbol which represents a number is called a Numeral system, but in common usage the word number is used for both the abstract object and the symbol, as well as for the numeral for the number....
twelve

12 (number)

12 is the natural number following 11 and preceding 13 .The word "twelve" is a native English language word that presumably arises from the Germanic languages compound twa-lif "two-leave", meaning that two is...
. The dozen may be one of the earliest primitive groupings, perhaps because there are approximately a dozen cycles of the moon

Moon

The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the List of natural satellites by diameter satellite in the Solar System. The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is km, about thirty times the diameter of the Earth....
or month

Month

The month is a unit of time, used with calendars, which is approximately as long as some natural Orbital period related to the motion of the Moon; month and Moon are cognates....
s in a cycle of the sun

Sun

The Sun , a G V star, is the star at the center of the Solar System. The Earth and other matter orbit the Sun, which by itself accounts for about 98.6% of the Solar System's mass....
or year

Year

A year is the time between two recurrences of an event related to the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. By extension, this can be applied to any planet: for example, a "Martian year" is the time in which Mars completes its own orbit....
. The dozen is convenient because its multiple

Multiple (mathematics)

In mathematics, a multiple of an integer is the Multiplication of that integer with another integer. In other words, for integer , is a multiple of iff for some integer ....
s and divisor

Divisor

In mathematics, a divisor of an integer n, also called a factor of n, is an integer which evenly divides n without leaving a remainder....
s are convenient: 12 = 2

2 (number)

2 is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the natural number following 1 and preceding 3 ....
× 2 × 3

3 (number)

----3 is a number, Numeral system, and glyph. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4 ....
, 3 × 4

4 (number)

This article discusses the number Four. For the year 4 AD, see 4. For other uses of 4, see 4 4 is a number, numeral, and glyph....
= 2 × 6

6 (number)

6 is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7 .The SI prefix for 10006 is exa , and for its reciprocal atto ....
, 60

60 (number)

60 is the natural number following 59 and preceding 61 . Being three times twenty, 60 is called "three 20 " in some older literature....
= 12 × 5

5 (number)

5 is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the natural number following 4 and preceding 6 ....
, 360

360 (number)

360 is the natural number following 359 and preceding 361....
= 12 × 30

30 (number)

30 is the natural number following 29 and preceding 31 ....
. The use of twelve as a base number, known as the duodecimal

Duodecimal

The duodecimal system is a numeral system using 12 as its radix. In this system, the number 10 may be written as 'A', and the number 11 as 'B' ....
system (also as dozenal), probably originated in Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia is the area of the Tigris-Euphrates river system, along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, largely corresponding to modern Iraq, as well as some parts of northeastern Syria, some parts of southeastern Turkey, and some parts of the Khuzestan Province of southwestern Iran....
(see also sexagesimal

Sexagesimal

Sexagesimal is a numeral system with 60 as the radix. It originated with the ancient Sumerians in the 3rd millennium BC, was transmitted to the Babylonia, and is still used?in modified form?for measuring time, angles, and geographic coordinates....
).

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Encyclopedia

Dozen is another word for the number

Number

12 (number)

Moon

Month

Sun

The Sun , a G V star, is the star at the center of the Solar System. The Earth and other matter orbit the Sun, which by itself accounts for about 98.6% of the Solar System's mass....
or year

Year

Multiple (mathematics)

In mathematics, a multiple of an integer is the Multiplication of that integer with another integer. In other words, for integer , is a multiple of iff for some integer ....
s and divisor

Divisor

In mathematics, a divisor of an integer n, also called a factor of n, is an integer which evenly divides n without leaving a remainder....
s are convenient: 12 = 2

2 (number)

2 is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the natural number following 1 and preceding 3 ....
× 2 × 3

3 (number)

----3 is a number, Numeral system, and glyph. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4 ....
, 3 × 4

4 (number)

This article discusses the number Four. For the year 4 AD, see 4. For other uses of 4, see 4 4 is a number, numeral, and glyph....
= 2 × 6

6 (number)

6 is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7 .The SI prefix for 10006 is exa , and for its reciprocal atto ....
, 60

60 (number)

60 is the natural number following 59 and preceding 61 . Being three times twenty, 60 is called "three 20 " in some older literature....
= 12 × 5

5 (number)

5 is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the natural number following 4 and preceding 6 ....
, 360

360 (number)

360 is the natural number following 359 and preceding 361....
= 12 × 30

30 (number)

30 is the natural number following 29 and preceding 31 ....
. The use of twelve as a base number, known as the duodecimal

Duodecimal

Mesopotamia

Sexagesimal

144 (number)

144 is the natural number following 143 and preceding 145 . 144 is a dozen dozens, or one gross ....
, the duodecimal 100) are known as a gross

Gross (unit)

A gross is equal to a dozen dozen, i.e. 12 × 12 = 144 .It can be used in duodecimal counting. The use a gross likely originated from the fact that 144 can be counted on the fingers using the fingertips and first two joints of each finger when marked by the thumb of one hand....
; and twelve gross (12³ = 1,728

1728 (number)

1728 is the natural number following 1727 and preceding 1729 . 1728 is a dozen gross , or one great gross....
, the duodecimal 1,000) are called a great gross, a term most often used when shipping or buying items in bulk. A great hundred, also known as a small gross

Small gross

Archaically, a small gross or short gross is a quantity equal to ten dozen, i.e. 10 × 12 = 120.This number is also known as a great hundred or a duodecimal hundred....
, is 120

120 (number)

120 is the natural number following 119 and preceding 121 . 120 was known as "the great hundred", especially prior to the year 1700, from the Teutonic Hundert which equalled 120....
or ten

10 (number)

10 is an Even and odd numbers natural number following 9 and preceding 11 ....
dozen (a dozen for each finger

Finger

A finger is a type of digit , an organ of manipulation and sensation found in the hands of humans and other primates.Normally humans have five digits, termed phalanges, on each hand ....
on both hand

Hand

The hands are the two intricate, prehensile, multi-fingered body parts normally located at the end of each arm of a human or other primate. They are the chief organs for physically manipulating the environment, using anywhere from the roughest motor skills to the finest , and since the fingertips contain some of the densest areas of nerve e...
s). A baker's dozen

Baker's dozen

A baker's dozen, also known as a long dozen and a "long measure", is 13 , one more than a proper dozen. The expression found its genesis in 13th-century England, when an Assize of Bread and Ale was introduced....
, also known as a long dozen, is thirteen

13 (number)

13 is the natural number after 12 and before 14 . It is the smallest integer with eight letters in its spelled out name in English. It is also the age at which children become teenagers....
.

The English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
word dozen comes from the old form of the French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
word douzaine, meaning "a group of twelve" ("Assemblage de choses de même nature au nombre de douze" - (translation: A group of twelve things of the same nature as defined in the eighth edition of the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française

Dictionnaire de l'Académie française

The Dictionnaire de l'Acad?mie fran?aise is the official dictionary of the French language in France.The Acad?mie fran?aise is France's official authority on the usages, vocabulary, and grammar of the French language, although its recommendations carry no legal power....
). This French word is a derivation from the cardinal number

Cardinal number

In mathematics, cardinal numbers, or cardinals for short, are a generalization of the natural numbers used to measure the cardinality of Set ....
douze ("twelve", from Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
duodecim) and the collective

Collective number

In linguistics, singulative number and collective number are terms used when the grammatical number for multiple items is the null morpheme form of a noun, and the noun is specially marked to indicate a single item....
suffix

Suffix

In grammar, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the grammatical conjugation of verbs....
-aine (from Latin -ena), a suffix also used to form other words with similar meanings such as quinzaine (a group of fifteen), vingtaine (a group of twenty), centaine (a group of one hundred), etc. These French words have synonymous cognate

Cognate

Cognates in linguistics are words that have a common etymology origin.An example of cognates within the same language would be English shirt vs....
s in Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....
: docena , quincena, veintena, centena, etc. English dozen, French douzaine, German Dutzend, Dutch dozijn and Spanish docena, are also used as indefinite quantifiers to mean "about twelve" or "many" (as in "a dozen times", "dozens of people").

Some historians believe that the base twelve was important because it counts things relating to the marks on the fingers on each hand aside the thumbs. Each finger except for the thumb is divided in three parts, four fingers makes twelve possibilities of counting, and two hands makes possible the accounting of twenty four objects. Using the decimal base for counting only allows ten possibilities with the both hands, one visual option for each finger. This method for accounting was introduced by the Babylonians and its still in use today.

Dozen

See also