nine

American  

[nahyn] / naɪn /

noun

• nines
  plural

1. a cardinal number, eight plus one.

2. a symbol for this number, as 9 or IX.

3. a set of this many persons or things.

4. a baseball team.

5. a playing card with nine pips.

6. the Nine, the Muses.

---

adjective

1. amounting to nine in number.

idioms

1. dressed to the nines, looking one's best; dressed smartly, splendidly, etc..

   All the girls were dressed to the nines for the party.

nine British  

/ naɪn /

noun

1. the cardinal number that is the sum of one and eight See also number

2. a numeral, 9, IX, etc, representing this number

3. something representing, represented by, or consisting of nine units, such as a playing card with nine symbols on it

4. Also: nine o'clock. nine hours after noon or midnight

   the play starts at nine

5. informal elaborately dressed

6. (in Britain) the telephone number of the emergency services

7. normal office hours

   he works nine to five

   a nine-to-five job

---

determiner

1. 1. amounting to nine

      nine days

   2. ( as pronoun )

      nine of the ten are ready

nine More Idioms  

1. see dressed to kill (to the nines); on cloud nine; possession is nine points of the law; whole nine yards.

---

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• nines
  plural

Etymology

Origin of nine

before 900; Middle English; Old English nigan, nigon, cognate with Dutch negen, akin to German neun, Old Norse nīu, Gothic niun, Latin novem, Greek ennéa, Sanskrit náva

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

nine nines

The Dodgers hit into three inning-ending double plays in the first five innings and overall left nine men on base, going one for six with runners in scoring position.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2026

He’s hitting .053 in the playoffs — only Cleveland’s Ángel Martínez has a lower average among players with at least nine at-bats.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2026

In a statement on Friday, the organisation said 52 men, 42 women, nine girls and six boys were among the bodies recovered.

From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2026

"For every job inside a Google data centre we support nine additional jobs in the surrounding community," he added.

From Barron's ● Oct. 11, 2026

After nine years—in April 1957—Joey finally achieves twelve consecutive negative swabs for Hansen’s disease, and she is allowed to leave Carville.

From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly

"How many nines of reliability do you need to scale?"

From Barron's ● Jul. 22, 2026

In early June, hundreds of fans dressed to the nines were in attendance at a rock star’s sold-out show at New York’s Beacon Theatre.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 20, 2026

The return of the 4-4-2, false nines, and set-pieces – the World Cup has already thrown up both familiar and new tactical ideas.

From BBC ● Jun. 15, 2026

Four nines means 99.99% of uptime—a typical percentage that a software company commits to customers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 13, 2026

We didn’t want to skew the graph with new data, and so didn’t mention that Desdemona was actually seventy-one, not ninety-one, and that she always confused sevens with nines.

From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides