"hundreds and thousands" meaning in English

See hundreds and thousands in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˌhʌndɹəds n̩ ˈθaʊz(ə)ndz/ [Received-Pronunciation], /ˌhʌndɹəds n̩ ˈθaʊz(ə)n(d)z/ [General-American] Audio: En-au-hundreds and thousands.oga [Australia]
Etymology: PIE word *ḱm̥tóm From hundreds + and + thousands. Sense 2 (“tiny balls or strands of multicoloured sugar”) is from the fact that the confectionery is made up of numerous sugar pieces. Etymology templates: {{l|ine-pro|*ḱm̥tóm}} *ḱm̥tóm, {{PIE word|en|ḱm̥tóm}} PIE word *ḱm̥tóm, {{root|en|ine-pro|*tewh₂-}}, {{compound|en|hundreds|and|thousands|notext=1|type=exocentric}} hundreds + and + thousands Head templates: {{en-noun|p|head=hundreds and thousands}} hundreds and thousands pl (plural only)
  1. An indefinite but emphatically large number. Tags: plural, plural-only Translations (indefinite but emphatically large number): آلافٌ مُؤَلَّفَة (ʔālāfun muʔallafa) [masculine, plural] (Arabic), centinaia di migliaia [feminine, plural] (Italian)
    Sense id: en-hundreds_and_thousands-en-noun-gxy0dLsY Disambiguation of 'indefinite but emphatically large number': 99 1
  2. (Australia, British, New Zealand, Ireland) Tiny balls or strands of multicoloured sugar, sprinkled over ice cream, desserts or party foods. Tags: Australia, British, Ireland, New-Zealand, plural, plural-only Categories (topical): Hundred, Sweets, Thousand Synonyms: nonpareil [US], nonpareils, sprinkles [US], sprinkles, 100s and 1000s, 100s & 1000s Related terms: dollarette, fairy bread, freckle
    Sense id: en-hundreds_and_thousands-en-noun-UckWKlNF Disambiguation of Hundred: 37 63 Disambiguation of Sweets: 3 97 Disambiguation of Thousand: 37 63 Categories (other): Australian English, British English, Irish English, New Zealand English, English coordinated pairs, English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with language name categories using raw markup, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English exocentric compounds, English pluralia tantum, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English coordinated pairs: 14 86 Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 6 94 Disambiguation of English entries with language name categories using raw markup: 6 94 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 7 93 Disambiguation of English exocentric compounds: 27 73 Disambiguation of English pluralia tantum: 13 87 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 7 93

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for hundreds and thousands meaning in English (7.0kB)

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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
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        {
          "text": "1864 September 12, W. T. Sherman, letter to James M. Calhoun, E. E. Rawson and S. C. Wells, representing City Council of Atlanta, published in 1865, Joel Tyler Headley, Grant and Sherman: Their Campaigns and Generals, 2008, page 592,\nI myself have seen in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, hundreds and thousands of women and children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry, and with bleeding feet."
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          "_dis1": "99 1",
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          "sense": "indefinite but emphatically large number",
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          ],
          "word": "آلافٌ مُؤَلَّفَة"
        },
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          "_dis1": "99 1",
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
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          "tags": [
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          "word": "centinaia di migliaia"
        }
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          "name": "Hundred",
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          "_dis": "3 97",
          "kind": "topical",
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          "name": "Sweets",
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            "Foods",
            "Eating",
            "Food and drink",
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          "orig": "en:Thousand",
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          "ref": "2003, Neil Wills, “Surfers′ Paradise”, in Third Way, page 12",
          "text": "So there you have them - Onoda, Gund, Eclipse - all squidged together on the same spoon, their flavours intermingling under a bleeding crust of hundreds-and-thousands.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, Pippa Cuthbert, Lindsay Cameron Wilson, Cookies!, New Holland Publishers (UK), archived from the original on 2016-09-17, page 96",
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        }
      ],
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      ],
      "id": "en-hundreds_and_thousands-en-noun-UckWKlNF",
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          "tiny#Adjective"
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          "balls",
          "ball#Noun"
        ],
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          "strands",
          "strand#Noun"
        ],
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          "multicoloured",
          "multicoloured"
        ],
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          "sugar",
          "sugar#Noun"
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        [
          "sprinkled",
          "sprinkle#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "ice cream",
          "ice cream"
        ],
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          "dessert",
          "dessert"
        ],
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          "party",
          "party#Noun"
        ],
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          "food",
          "food"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(Australia, British, New Zealand, Ireland) Tiny balls or strands of multicoloured sugar, sprinkled over ice cream, desserts or party foods."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "_dis1": "8 92",
          "word": "dollarette"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "8 92",
          "word": "fairy bread"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "8 92",
          "word": "freckle"
        }
      ],
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        {
          "tags": [
            "US"
          ],
          "word": "nonpareil"
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          "word": "nonpareils"
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        {
          "tags": [
            "US"
          ],
          "word": "sprinkles"
        },
        {
          "word": "sprinkles"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "8 92",
          "word": "100s and 1000s"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "8 92",
          "word": "100s & 1000s"
        }
      ],
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      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌhʌndɹəds n̩ ˈθaʊz(ə)n(d)z/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "En-au-hundreds and thousands.oga",
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      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/En-au-hundreds_and_thousands.oga",
      "tags": [
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}
{
  "categories": [
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    "English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European",
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    "English terms with IPA pronunciation",
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  "etymology_text": "PIE word\n *ḱm̥tóm\nFrom hundreds + and + thousands. Sense 2 (“tiny balls or strands of multicoloured sugar”) is from the fact that the confectionery is made up of numerous sugar pieces.",
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      "word": "dollarette"
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          "text": "1864 September 12, W. T. Sherman, letter to James M. Calhoun, E. E. Rawson and S. C. Wells, representing City Council of Atlanta, published in 1865, Joel Tyler Headley, Grant and Sherman: Their Campaigns and Generals, 2008, page 592,\nI myself have seen in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, hundreds and thousands of women and children fleeing from your armies and desperadoes, hungry, and with bleeding feet."
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          "text": "So there you have them - Onoda, Gund, Eclipse - all squidged together on the same spoon, their flavours intermingling under a bleeding crust of hundreds-and-thousands.",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "2007, Pippa Cuthbert, Lindsay Cameron Wilson, Cookies!, New Holland Publishers (UK), archived from the original on 2016-09-17, page 96",
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        "Tiny balls or strands of multicoloured sugar, sprinkled over ice cream, desserts or party foods."
      ],
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          "Tiny",
          "tiny#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "balls",
          "ball#Noun"
        ],
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          "strands",
          "strand#Noun"
        ],
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          "multicoloured",
          "multicoloured"
        ],
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          "sugar",
          "sugar#Noun"
        ],
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          "sprinkled",
          "sprinkle#Verb"
        ],
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          "ice cream"
        ],
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          "dessert"
        ],
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          "party",
          "party#Noun"
        ],
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          "food"
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(Australia, British, New Zealand, Ireland) Tiny balls or strands of multicoloured sugar, sprinkled over ice cream, desserts or party foods."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
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          "tags": [
            "US"
          ],
          "word": "nonpareil"
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          "word": "nonpareils"
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        {
          "tags": [
            "US"
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          "word": "sprinkles"
        },
        {
          "word": "sprinkles"
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      "ipa": "/ˌhʌndɹəds n̩ ˈθaʊz(ə)n(d)z/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
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  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "100s and 1000s"
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    {
      "word": "100s & 1000s"
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "ar",
      "lang": "Arabic",
      "roman": "ʔālāfun muʔallafa",
      "sense": "indefinite but emphatically large number",
      "tags": [
        "masculine",
        "plural"
      ],
      "word": "آلافٌ مُؤَلَّفَة"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "indefinite but emphatically large number",
      "tags": [
        "feminine",
        "plural"
      ],
      "word": "centinaia di migliaia"
    }
  ],
  "word": "hundreds and thousands"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.