ten
/tɛn/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.05 in modern English
3
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
num
The number occurring after nine and before eleven, represented in Arabic numerals (base ten) as 10 and in Roman numerals as X.
noun
A perfect specimen, (particularly) a physically attractive person.
American usage; Countable; Slang
Example Sentences
- "There is a melody upon the Earth as though ten thousand streams all sang together for their homes that they had forsaken in the hills."
- "A ten frame is a simple graphic tool that allows people to “see” numbers."
- "We divided the chocolates into tens to hand out to Hallowe'en visitors."
- "They can readily state the number of tens in a hundred. But somehow they do not have a full appreciation of the "tenness" of our system and how the system is structured."
- "Understanding that numbers are composed of tens and ones is an important foundational concept, setting the stage for work with larger numbers."
- "Our houses are tens of meters apart, so we don't have to worry about noise from our neighbours."
Etymology
PIE word *déḱm̥ From Middle English ten, tene, from Old English tīen, from Proto-West Germanic *tehun, from Proto-Germanic *tehun, from Proto-Indo-European *déḱm̥. Cognate with Scots ten, tene (“ten”), West Frisian tsien (“ten”), Saterland Frisian tjoon (“ten”), North Frisian tiin (“ten”). See also teen.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: ten, tīen, *tehun, *déḱm̥
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /tɛn/
- British English: /tɛn/
Usage
- Countable
- Uncountable
- American usage
- Slang