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:
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
The stock gained in ten of the last eleven weeks and is up 14% this week and 17% over the last month.
From Barron's ● Jun. 30, 2026
A large 2026 study found that colon cancer patients with very high B12 levels survived a median of around five years, compared with nearly eleven years for those with normal levels.
From Science Daily ● May 27, 2026
It is a risk to find herself at the bottom of the stairs at her age with eleven flights to climb with bags of shopping, Ana Rosa says.
From BBC ● May 22, 2026
He was turning eleven in six months, after all.
From "The Way to Rio Luna" by Zoraida Cordova
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
Four of the tables were empty, but cabin elevens was way overcrowded.
From "The Lightning Thief" by Rick Riordan
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
