Other forms: numbers
A number is a word or sign that says how many. A phone number, an odd number, a large number of people.
A number of means several and is followed by a plural verb; the number of takes a singular. Numbers in the plural also means arithmetic generally: good with numbers. As a verb, to number is to count or to assign numbers. Note number one, meaning the top position; do a number on somebody, meaning to damage them; and that your days are numbered means the end is near.
1nounnumberA word or sign that says how many.~65%
“Can you read the number on that bus from here?”
2nounquantityA quantity of people or things.~35%
“A large number of fans were waiting outside the hotel.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 18 sentences found in the wild and placed 17 of them on a sense (1 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
number is a quantity or symbol.
Latin numerus comes from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning to distribute or allot. Number, numerous and enumerate all descend from it, and so does nomad — somebody who is allotted pasture.
Proto-Indo-European
*nem-
Middle English
nombre
English, today
number
From Middle English nombre. Middle English number, nombre, numbre, noumbre, from Anglo-Norman noumbre, Old French nombre, from Latin numerus (“number”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European nem- (“to distribute, to give, to take”). Compare stq Nummer, Nuumer, West Frisian nûmer, Dutch nummer (“number”), German Nummer (“number”), Danish nummer (“number”), Swedish nummer (“number”), Icelandic númer (“number”). ȝetæl and rime; more at tell, tale and rhyme. Distantly related (via Proto-Indo-European) to English nim (“to take, seize”) and its Germanic cognates (e.g. German nehmen), hence also to numb.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA