Join free

dozen

English · Thesaurus

AI In plain words

Writing a short explanation…

Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.

dozen¹

  • /ˈdʌzən/ Canada, US, UK
  • /ˈdɐzən/ Australia, New Zealand

Rhymes with -ʌzən

Where it comes from

From Middle English dozen, dozein, doseyne, from Old French dozaine (“a group of twelve”) (Modern French douzaine), from doze (“twelve”) + -aine (“-ish”), from Latin duodecim (“twelve”) (from duo (“two”) + decem (“ten”)) + -ana (“-ish”).

noun dozens · dozen · doz

  1. A set of twelve. Can I have a dozen eggs, please?
  2. as plural only A large, unspecified number of, comfortably estimated in small multiples of twelve, thus generally implied to be significantly more than ten or twelve, but less than perhaps one or two hundred; many. There must have been dozens of examples just on the first page.

    Similar: a great deal of

  3. An old English measure of ore containing 12 hundredweight. The dozen as a measure for iron ore remained almost completely constant at 12 cwts. during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
  4. The number twelve.

Similar: a lot of, heap of, hundred of, load of, lot of, many, million of, score of, scad of, thousand of · Opposite: few

dozen²

  • /ˈdʌzən/ Canada, US, UK
  • /ˈdɐzən/ Australia, New Zealand

Rhymes with -ʌzən

Where it comes from

From a deliberate misspelling of doesn't, originally referring to someone who "dozen sing, dozen rap, dozen do anything."

noun dozens · doz

  1. derogatory A member of a K-pop group who has no talent.

Thesaurus

Closest in meaning: twelve, cardinal, xii, ten, tenth, six, decade, handful, dustpan, shovel, tens, twelfth, scores, xiii, dozenal, duodecim

noun

Similar: a lot of, heap of, hundred of, load of, lot of, many, million of, score of, scad of, thousand of · Opposite: few

Translations

Every language

noun twelve

Españoldocena
한국어다스 daseu
日本語ダース dāsu
中文打 dá
हिन्दीदर्जन darjan
Kiswahilidazani
Portuguêsdúzia
Françaisdouzaine
DeutschDutzend
Italianodozzina
Ελληνικάντουζίνα ntouzína
Românăduzină
Русскийдю́жина djúžina
Tiếng Việttá
العربيةدَزِّينَة dazzīna, دَسْتَة dasta, دَرْزَن darzan
עבריתתְּרֵיסָר t'resár

noun dozens: a large number

Españoldecenas
Portuguêsdezena, centena
Françaisdizaines
DeutschDutzende
Italianocentinaia, migliaia
Русскийдеся́тки desjátki, мно́жество mnóžestvo, у́йма újma

Talk about this word

Cite this
MLA

"dozen." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/dozen. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

dozen. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/dozen

Chicago

"dozen." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/dozen.

BibTeX
@misc{dozen_2026,
  title = {dozen},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/dozen},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}