Word.ws English Dictionary

E number

E number noun: any of a range of European abbreviations for food additives used on labels.

Noun

E number (plural E numbers)

  1. Any of a range of European abbreviations for food additives used on labels.
    • The E number E100 represents turmeric.
  2. (Ireland, UK, informal) Any such additive, often regarded as undesirable.
    • I finger Padre Pio paperweights and Our Lady of Knock sticks of rock that are packed with more e-numbers than could be safe at one sitting.2003, Deirdre Brennan, Maighread Medbh, Nuala Ni Chonchuir, Divas!
    • ...how long it took corpses to go off these days, because everyone was so full of E-numbers and preservatives.2007, Anne Enright, The Gathering

Forms of E number

pluralE numbers

Questions about E number

What does E number mean?
E number means any of a range of European abbreviations for food additives used on labels.
What part of speech is E number?
E number is a noun.
What is the plural of E number?
The plural of E number is E numbers.

Words near E number in the dictionary

  1. e flats
  2. e hoa
  3. e hoa ma
  4. E major
  5. E minor
  6. E number
  7. E numbers
  8. E O
  9. E P&L
  10. e pick
  11. e picking

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: E number (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “E number.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/e_number. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.