ordinal numbers

Cultural  

1. Numbers that indicate the order or position of something in a group or set, such as first, second, or fifteenth. (Compare cardinal numbers.)

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Example Sentences

The assumption is that something of the essence of institutions, public or private, small or large, religious or not, can be distilled by crunching data and assembling lists with ordinal numbers.

From Washington Post • Jan. 24, 2023

A visitor alighting from a distant solar system might make befuddled inquiries regarding our planet’s conception of math, and ordinal numbers, and “losing.”

From Slate • Feb. 3, 2016

Word's stylistic preferences range from the irritating—the superscript "th" on ordinal numbers, the eagerness to forcibly indent any numbered list it detects—to the outright wrong.

From Slate • Apr. 11, 2012

Instead of distinguishing the days by the ordinal numbers first, second, third, &c., the Romans counted backwards from three fixed epochs, namely, the Calends, the Nones and the Ides.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" by Various

This attaching to the cardinal numbers above three or four the meanings of the ordinal numbers seems to affect many children on entrance to school.

From The Psychology of Arithmetic by Thorndike, Edward L. (Edward Lee)