Other forms: hundreds
A hundred is ten times ten. It is written 100, and in English it is always preceded by a or one — a hundred people, one hundred pounds — never hundred on its own.
The plural rule is the one that catches everybody: after a number, hundred stays singular. Two hundred, five hundred, six hundred and twelve. It takes -s only when it means an unspecified large number, and then it takes of: hundreds of people, hundreds of times. British English inserts and before the tens — a hundred and five — where American English usually drops it. Note also that a hundred and one is used to mean a great many: a hundred and one things to do.
1nounnumberThe number 100.~77%
“There were about a hundred people in the hall.”
2nounhundredA large but unspecified number.~23%
“She has told me hundreds of times.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 15 sentences found in the wild and placed 13 of them on a sense (2 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
hundred is a number.
Also accepted in games: one hundred
The Proto-Indo-European *kmtom gives Latin centum, Greek hekaton and English hundred, and the same root sits inside cent, century and percent. It is one of the small set of numbers that can be traced back to the earliest reconstructable layer of the language.
Proto-Indo-European
*ḱm̥tóm
Middle English
hundred
English, today
hundred
Built from
From Middle English hundred, from hundred, from hundaradą, from hundą (from Proto-Indo-European ḱm̥tóm) + radą (“count”), a neuter variant of radō (“row, line, series”). Compare West Frisian hûndert, Dutch honderd, Low German hunnert, hunnerd, German Hundert, hundert, Danish hundred*.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA