eleven
Americannoun
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elevens
plural
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a cardinal number, ten plus one.
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a symbol for this number, such as 11 or XI.
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a set or group of 11 people or things, such as a football or soccer team.
The new forward plays a pivotal role in the Manchester eleven.
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Also called eleven lines. Informal. none elevens or 11s. a pair of vertical wrinkles that commonly develop between the eyebrows; frown lines.
My dermatologist said he could fix my elevens with no injections or plastic surgery.
adjective
noun
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the cardinal number that is the sum of ten and one
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a numeral 11, XI, etc, representing this number
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something representing, represented by, or consisting of 11 units
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(functioning as singular or plural) a team of 11 players in football, cricket, hockey, etc
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Also called: eleven o'clock. eleven hours after noon or midnight
determiner
Usage
Spelling tips for 11 The word eleven (11) is hard to spell because the word sounds as if it should include the letter i [ ih-lev-uhn ]. How to spell eleven: The easiest way to remember how to spell eleven is that every other letter is an e. There are no other vowels. You simply take all of the consonant sounds (l, v, and n), and add an e between all of them: eLeVeN.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of eleven
First recorded before 900; Middle English elleven(e), Old English ellefne, endleofan; cognate with Old High German einlif ( German elf ), Old Norse ellifu, Gothic ainlib-, literally, one remaining (after counting ten). See one, leave 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“We would not be here if they had taken our concerns seriously for almost eleven months of bargaining.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 2, 2026
A year later, California entered the union as a free state, resetting the national debate on free versus slave states, eleven years before the Civil War.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 2, 2026
In Utah, the largest of eleven active blazes is the Cottonwood Fire, which as of Sunday covered over 93,000 acres and was 0% contained, according to the US Forest Service.
From BBC ● Jun. 28, 2026
“For the public, in my eleven years that I’ve been county judge, this is perhaps my third time that I’ve ever re-ranked the proposals,” Tijerina said.
From Salon ● Jun. 11, 2026
He was anti-Union, antiblack, and the owner of up to eleven slaves before Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had freed them.
From "Chasing Lincoln's Killer" by James L. Swanson
Six seeds are 86-50 against the elevens, fives are 89-47 against twelves, and once you get to fours vs. thirteens, you're in never gonna happen territory.
From Golf Digest ● Mar. 18, 2019
Your teacher chants, “Eleven elevens, a hundred twenty-one.”
From The New Yorker ● Sep. 17, 2012
The date on Friday will be Nov. 11, 2011, and the triple play of elevens — being rendered as 11/11/11, 11-11-11 and 11.11.11 — is inspiring a commercialized celebration on Madison Avenue.
From New York Times ● Nov. 10, 2011
He loves sevens and elevens as well, but within the phrases of five, he will have different parts of the beat looped in threes, fives and sevens a lot as well.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 27, 2011
The way it works with dice, if you shave just a bit off one side, you supposed to be able to roll more sevens and elevens.
From "Life Is So Good" by George Dawson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
