Twelve
noun, num, slang ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A group of twelve items.
"Fractions would be a little easier if we counted by twelves."
- 2 the cardinal number that is the sum of eleven and one wordnet
- 3 A twelve-bore gun.
"In this way Von Esslin ‘inherited’ two fine hammerless twelves which he used once or twice for duck on the Camargue."
- 4 A jury (normally composed of twelve persons). colloquial
- 5 The police; law enforcement, especially a narcotics officer. slang
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- 6 Front (front side of something, position in front of something). slang
"watch your twelve"
- 1 being one more than eleven wordnet
- 1 The cardinal number occurring after eleven and before thirteen, represented in Arabic numerals as 12 and in Roman numerals as XII.
"There are twelve months in a year."
Example
More examples"I spent twelve hours on the train."
Etymology
From Middle English twelve, from Old English twelf (“twelve”), from Proto-Germanic *twalif, an old compound of *twa- (“two”) and *-lif (“left over”) (i.e., two left over after having already counted to ten), from Proto-Indo-European *leyp- (“leave, remain”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian tweelf, tweelif, tweelich (“twelve”), West Frisian tolve (“twelve”), Dutch twaalf (“twelve”), German Low German twalf, twalv (“twelve”), German zwölf (“twelve”), Danish, Swedish and Norwegian tolv (“twelve”), Icelandic tólf (“twelve”).
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.