Word.ws English Dictionary

banker's dozen

banker's dozen noun: eleven.

Noun

banker's dozen

  1. (idiomatic, uncommon) Eleven.
    • Not a low baker's dozen, you will perceive, but two high banker's dozen !1899, The Arena - Volume 21, page 195
    • There were 11 in number (a reference has been made to them as constituting a banker's dozen), representing the following organizations :1960, United States. Congress. House. Select Committee on Small Business, Small Business Problems in Food Distribution

Origin of banker's dozen

A play on the phrase baker's dozen; it is one less than a dozen as compared to one more. See also bankers' hours.

Questions about banker's dozen

What does banker's dozen mean?
Banker's dozen means eleven.
What part of speech is banker's dozen?
Banker's dozen is a noun.

Words near banker's dozen in the dictionary

  1. banker's bill
  2. banker's bills
  3. banker's box
  4. banker's boxes
  5. banker's clip
  6. banker's dozen
  7. banker's draft
  8. banker's drafts
  9. banker's draught
  10. banker's draughts
  11. banker's envelope

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: banker's dozen (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-banker's dozen.ogg.

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