911

[ nahyn-wuhn-wuhn, nahyn-i-lev-uhn ]

/ ˈnaɪnˌwʌnˈwʌn, ˈnaɪn ɪˈlɛv ən /

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(in the U.S. and Canada) a telephone number used to reach emergency services, as the police, the fire department, or an ambulance.

QUIZ

ARE YOU A TRUE BLUE CHAMPION OF THESE "BLUE" SYNONYMS?

We could talk until we're blue in the face about this quiz on words for the color "blue," but we think you should take the quiz and find out if you're a whiz at these colorful terms.

Question 1 of 8

Which of the following words describes “sky blue”?

navy

beryl

azure

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Origin of 911

First recorded in 1965–70

Words nearby 911

78, 7-dehydrocholesterol, “800” number, 8d, 900 number, 911, a, A1, A1c, A2, A2 level

Other definitions for 911 (2 of 2)

9/11

or 9-11

[ nahyn-i-lev-uhn ]

/ ˈnaɪn ɪˈlɛv ən /

September 11, 2001: the day on which Islamic terrorists, believed to be part of the Al-Qaeda network, hijacked four commercial airplanes and crashed two of them into the World Trade Center in New York City and a third one into the Pentagon in Virginia: the fourth plane crashed into a field in rural Pennsylvania.

Also called nine-eleven .

How to use 911 in a sentence

The Air Force has enough MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper drones.
Exclusive: U.S. Drone Fleet at ‘Breaking Point,’ Air Force Says|Dave Majumdar|January 5, 2015|DAILY BEAST
The Raptor carries six AMRAAMs and two shorter range AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles inside its weapons bays.
Pentagon Worries That Russia Can Now Outshoot U.S. Stealth Jets|Dave Majumdar|December 4, 2014|DAILY BEAST
But what spurred him to action was a Washington Post study of the post-9/11 veteran population.
The Next Greatest Generation|Nina Strochlic|November 18, 2014|DAILY BEAST
It was lunchtime when a tracked launcher with four SA-11 surface-to-air missiles rolled into town and parked on Karapetyan Street.
MH17 Missile Can't Hide From These Internet Sleuths|Eliot Higgins|August 2, 2014|DAILY BEAST

But before the FAA acted an ancient ValuJet DC-9 crashed in Florida, killing 110 people.
Malaysia Airlines Is Going Down|Clive Irving|August 1, 2014|DAILY BEAST
The "remoteness" and the "distance which was not measurable" somehow came to be packed within these two dates,1865-9.
The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, November 1879|Various
The PDP-9 first tries to reconstruct a vertex from the proton trajectories.
On-Line Data-Acquisition Systems in Nuclear Physics, 1969|H. W. Fulbright et al.
The two PDP-9's are coupled only by a switchable tape drive, with no plans at present for direct channel-to-channel communication.
On-Line Data-Acquisition Systems in Nuclear Physics, 1969|H. W. Fulbright et al.
Spinning a small wheel at the side of the control panel, Tom reported, "Feeders at D-9 rate, sir!"
On the Trail of the Space Pirates|Carey Rockwell
Their special merit is that one can work121 at f/8 or f/11, and get a picture sharp up to the edges.
The Barnet Book of Photography|Various

Cultural definitions for 911

9-11

See September 11 attacks.