natural number

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noun

a positive integer or zero.

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Origin of natural number

First recorded in 1755–65

Words nearby natural number

natural law, natural levee, natural logarithm, naturally, natural mutation, natural number, natural parent, natural person, natural philosophy, natural rate of unemployment, natural realism

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2021

How to use natural number in a sentence

Claiming that physics is finished is akin to arguing that mathematics ended after the introduction of natural numbers and basic arithmetic, or that chemistry was over with the advent of the periodic table.
Contemplating the End of Physics|Robbert Dijkgraaf|November 24, 2020|Quanta Magazine
“Our members continue to face a number of challenges,” she said.
The Republican War on Kale|Patricia Murphy|January 7, 2015|DAILY BEAST
The number of dissenters though is unprecedented in the modern era.
Democrats Accidentally Save Boehner From Republican Coup|Ben Jacobs, Jackie Kucinich|January 6, 2015|DAILY BEAST
In 2007 he said he had discovered a cure for AIDS using natural herbs.
The Shadowy U.S. Veteran Who Tried to Overthrow a Country|Jacob Siegel|January 6, 2015|DAILY BEAST

Total oil production figures include crude oil, natural gas liquids, and other liquid energy products.
Fact-Checking the Sunday Shows: Jan. 4|PunditFact.com|January 5, 2015|DAILY BEAST
On top of oil, the United States produces significantly more natural gas than Saudi Arabia.
Fact-Checking the Sunday Shows: Jan. 4|PunditFact.com|January 5, 2015|DAILY BEAST
The country is well inhabited, for it contains fifty-one cities, near a hundred walled towns, and a great number of villages.
Gulliver's Travels|Jonathan Swift
It is full of poetic feeling, and the flesh tints are unusually natural.
Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D.|Clara Erskine Clement
We had six field-pieces, but we only took four, harnessed wit twice the usual number of horses.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV.|Various
There are a number of bacilli, called acid-fast bacilli, which stain in the same way as the tubercle bacillus.
A Manual of Clinical Diagnosis|James Campbell Todd
Five of the number had studied with Liszt before, and the young men are artists already before the public.
Music-Study in Germany|Amy Fay

British Dictionary definitions for natural number

natural number

noun

any of the numbers 0,1,2,3,4,… that can be used to count the members of a set; the non-negative integers

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Scientific definitions for natural number

natural number

A positive integer.