ordinal numbers

Cultural  

1. Numbers that indicate the order or position of something in a group or set, such as first, second, or fifteenth. (Compare cardinal numbers.)

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Example Sentences

The assumption is that something of the essence of institutions, public or private, small or large, religious or not, can be distilled by crunching data and assembling lists with ordinal numbers.

From Washington Post • Jan. 24, 2023

A visitor alighting from a distant solar system might make befuddled inquiries regarding our planet’s conception of math, and ordinal numbers, and “losing.”

From Slate • Feb. 3, 2016

Word's stylistic preferences range from the irritating—the superscript "th" on ordinal numbers, the eagerness to forcibly indent any numbered list it detects—to the outright wrong.

From Slate • Apr. 11, 2012

The notion of an “aggregate” in general underlies the system of ordinal numbers.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 11, Slice 3 "Frost" to "Fyzabad" by Various

Brown, J. C., xvi, 103 Burgerstein, L., 103 Burnett, C. J., 202 Burt, C., 286 Cardinal and ordinal numbers confused, 206 Catch problems, 21 ff.

From The Psychology of Arithmetic by Thorndike, Edward L. (Edward Lee)