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say it: NUHM-bur
number is a noun and verb meaning "the property possessed by a sum or total or indefinite quantity of units or individuals". It is pronounced /ˈnʌmbɚ/ — NUHM-bur. It carries 18 recorded senses.
the property possessed by a sum or total or indefinite quantity of units or individuals
“the number of parameters is small”
“the figure was about a thousand”
a concept of quantity involving zero and units
“every number has a unique position in the sequence”
a short performance that is part of a longer program
“he did his act three times every evening”
“she had a catchy little routine”
“it was one of the best numbers he ever did”
the number is used in calling a particular telephone
“he has an unlisted number”
a symbol used to represent a number
“he learned to write the numerals before he went to school”
one of a series published periodically
“she found an old issue of the magazine in her dentist's waiting room”
a numeral or string of numerals that is used for identification and may be attached to accounts, memberships, etc.
“she refused to give them her Social Security number”
a numbered item in a series
“take the number 2 to the main square, then change to the number 5”
the grammatical category for the forms of nouns and pronouns and verbs that are used depending on the number of entities involved (singular or dual or plural)
“in English the subject and the verb must agree in number”
an item of clothing
“she preferred the black nylon number”
“this sweater is an all-wool number”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for number come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.