dozen
part of speech
noun (dozen, dozens)
meaning for a pupil
1) A dozen is twelve: a dozen eggs is 12 eggs. tree →
2) Dozens means a lot, many: «dozens of people». tree →
3) A dozen can also mean twelve strokes of the cane given as a punishment at school. tree →
sense in the lessons
In the mystic school: In note 12 a dozen is the friendliest number, because twelve brothers can always be split into teams with nobody left over. In the primary lessons: a group of twelve: «N dozen» is N × 12; eggs, rolls and cookies are often sold by the dozen; «half a dozen» is 6; a «baker's dozen» is 13; phrases: «a dozen», «half a dozen», «dozens of», «by the dozen»
examples
- That is why the old world counted in dozens. (note 12) tree →
- A dozen can always be shared out fairly, whatever the size of the table. (note 12) tree →
- A dozen chairs, some taken, some waiting for minds whose jobs nobody has invented yet. (note 12) tree →
- The twelfth note calls twelve the friendliest of the small numbers: ten splits only into twos and fives, but twelve splits into twos, threes, fours and sixes, so halves, thirds and quarters all come out with nothing left over. That is why the old world counted in dozens. (lesson 024) tree →
- In the note, the old world counted in dozens: twelve months, twelve hours of the day and twelve of the night, twelve eggs in a box. (lesson 024) tree →
- Mum buys 3 dozen eggs. tree →
- Mum buys nine and a half dozen eggs. tree →
- A baker made 2 dozen rolls and sold 15. tree →
- A dozen eggs come in one box. tree →
- Half a dozen is six. tree →
- Dozens of birds sat on the wires. tree →
- A baker's dozen is 13, one extra for luck. tree →
- We need two dozen cupcakes for the party. tree →
- I would rather lose a dozen cherry trees than that you should tell one false-hood." tree →
note
«A dozen is twelve.» «N dozen» is N × 12; «half a dozen» is 6; «N and a half dozen» is N × 12 + 6. After a number, say «3 dozen», not «3 dozens».
In the corpora
- Job hunting means searching adverts and sending applications, often dozens before getting anywhere; many get no reply at all.
- Falling is part of learning to dance, and many viral videos took the dancer dozens of tries.
- Modern hens can lay around three hundred eggs a year, while wild junglefowl lay only a few dozen.
- Some cats have extra toes, and Ernest Hemingway's old house in Florida still has dozens of cats, many with six toes.
- Your phone holds dozens of metals, among them lithium, cobalt, copper and rare earth elements.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «dozen» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.