Word.ws English Dictionary

short dozen

short dozen noun: ten.

Noun

short dozen (plural short dozens)

  1. Ten.
    • Ten women are considered by Mr. Rogers, of various nationalities and from various social strata […]. Inez Montez, Irish by birth but Spanish by choice and adding for years to the color of the California Gold Coast, makes up the tenth of this short dozen of Gallant Ladies.1928, Commonweal, volume 8, page 397
    • Speaking of marketing, Willard, along with apparently many standard growers across the country, recently went to the "short dozen" mum count. He packs ten flowers, not twelve, markets them at the same price as the old dozen.1976, Grower Talks, volume 39, page 22
  2. Eleven.
    • Our short dozen of Aristophanic dramas may be taken to represent the fittest among the hundreds of other comedies which have perished.1898, Aristophanes. I. The Acharnians. II. The knights. III. The clouds, page x
    • Mrs. Van Slyke has chosen as her special field of interest the Syrian quarter of Brooklyn, and the result of her observations she has given us in a short dozen of stories, grouped under the title, Eve's Other Children.1913, Mary Bannister Willard, The Survey: social, charitable, civic: a journal of constructive philanthropy, volume 30, page 147

Forms of short dozen

pluralshort dozens

Origin of short dozen

For the sense "ten", compare the relationship of one "short hundred" (100) to one "long hundred" (120). For the sense "eleven", contrast a "long dozen" (13).

Questions about short dozen

What does short dozen mean?
Short dozen means ten.
What part of speech is short dozen?
Short dozen is a noun.
What is the plural of short dozen?
The plural of short dozen is short dozens.

Words near short dozen in the dictionary

  1. short cut
  2. short cuts
  3. short division
  4. short divisions
  5. short down
  6. short dozen
  7. short dozens
  8. short drink
  9. short drinks
  10. short drop
  11. short drops

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: short 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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