dozen

¹ American  

[duhz-uhn] / ˈdʌz ən /

noun

• dozens,
  plural
• dozen
  plural

1. a group of 12.

2. Slang. the dozens, a ritualized game typically engaged in by two persons each of whom attempts to outdo the other in insults directed against members of the other's family (usually used in the phraseplay the dozens ).

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adjective

1. twelve.

dozen ² American  

[doh-zuhn] / ˈdoʊ zən /

verb (used with object)

Scot.

1. to stun.

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dozen British  

/ ˈdʌzən /

determiner

1. 1. twelve or a group of twelve

      a dozen eggs

      two dozen oranges

   2. ( as pronoun; functioning as sing or plural )

      give me a dozen

      there are at least a dozen who haven't arrived yet

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noun

1. in large quantities

2. See baker's dozen

3. to talk without stopping

dozen Idioms  

1. see baker's dozen; by the dozen; daily dozen; dime a dozen; six of one, half dozen of the other.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• dozenth
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• dozen
  plural
• dozens
  plural

Etymology

Origin of dozen¹

1250–1300; Middle English dozeine < Old French do ( u ) zaine, equivalent to do ( u ) ze (< Latin duodecim ) + -aine (< Latin -āna ) -an

Origin of dozen²

1325–75; Middle English (Scots); see doze ¹

Explanation

A dozen is twelve. If you buy a dozen doughnuts for six people, everyone will get to eat two of them. When you buy a dozen of something, you'll end up with twelve items. Your cat might, amazingly, have a dozen kittens, leading you to make a dozen phone calls trying to find homes for them all. Sometimes people use the word dozens to generically mean "a whole lot," as when you gasp, "There are dozens of seagulls sitting on my car!" Dozen has a Latin root, duodecim, "twelve."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

dozen dozens

Justice Department officials said the case is proceeding apace, with roughly a dozen prosecutors continuing to pursue a set of related investigations that could result in charges in coming weeks.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 10, 2026

One particularly striking finding concerns tungsten, an extremely heat-resistant metal selected for the interior walls of more than a dozen next-generation fusion machines.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 10, 2026

In a copy of his real passport seen by the BBC there are more than two dozen stamps from countries including France, Spain and Canada – all dated after the Nord Stream attacks.

From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2026

Over a dozen large aftershocks, one above magnitude 6.0, were recorded by the local geosciences institute.

From Barron's ● Oct. 9, 2026

She had about a dozen kids bunched up behind her.

From "Summer of the Monkeys" by Wilson Rawls

Authorities have closed dozens of metro stations, cancelled several trains coming to Delhi and shut down mobile internet temporarily around the protest site.

From Barron's ● Oct. 10, 2026

One of dozens of Polish codebreakers based there, Fred would work in a team listening to German signals and attempting to decode them.

From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2026

The effort involved dozens of journalists from over 15 countries who visited factories and farms and boarded fishmeal ships at sea.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2026

Garfield has published dozens of studies examining fathers' physical and mental health.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 8, 2026

As she did, details in the trunk became clearer, until she realized it wasn’t a single huge tree, but dozens of smaller trees that grew so close together, they acted as one.

From Anya and the Nightingale by Sofiya Pasternack

Related Words

• twelve