ten

UK/tɛn/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

pin pen merger/tɪn/

ten numeral: the number occurring after nine and before eleven, represented in Arabic numerals (base ten) as 10 and in Roman numerals as X.

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Numeral

ten

The number occurring after nine and before eleven, represented in Arabic numerals (base ten) as 10 and in Roman numerals as X.
- There is a melody upon the Earth as though ten thousand streams all sang together for their homes that they had forsaken in the hills.1905, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], “The Sayings of Slid (whose Soul is by the Sea)”, in The Gods of Pegāna, London: [Charles] Elkin Mathews, […], →OCLC, page 15
- A ten frame is a simple graphic tool that allows people to “see” numbers.(Can we date this quote?), “What is a Ten Frame and why is it a useful tool for developing early number relationships and fact fluency?”, in Rhodes University, page 1

Noun (1)

ten (countable and uncountable, plural tens)

A set or group with ten elements.
- We divided the chocolates into tens to hand out to Hallowe'en visitors.
- They can readily state the number of tens in a hundred. But somehow they do not have a full appreciation of the "tenness" of our system and how the system is structured.1958 May, Carolyn J. Ingham, Joseph N. Payne, “An eighth-grade unit on number systems”, in The Mathematics Teacher, volume 51, number 5, page 392
(in plural) An inexact quantity, typically understood to be between 20 and 100.
- Our houses are tens of meters apart, so we don't have to worry about noise from our neighbours.
- tens of thousands of voters
(countable) A card in a given suit with a value of ten.
(countable) A denomination of currency, such as a banknote, with a value of ten units.
- Can you give me two tens for this twenty?
Synonyms:

tenner
(US, countable, slang) A perfect specimen, (particularly) a physically attractive person.
- I was in the Woodley Park–Zoo in D.C. and mom and sister were waiting to see the pandas, so me and my pops broke away to check out the monkey house. Well, there was a beautiful teacher, I mean we're talking a ten, she was blond, had a low-cut dress on, just gorgeous. And she has about eight or nine...2006 May 9, Penn Jillette, Michael Goudeau, quoting Chris, 22:22 from the start, in Penn Radio
- An Office Ten is a person who falls somewhere between average to mildly good-looking in the world at large but skyrockets to wildly attractive within the confines of an open-concept desk plan.2023 September 11, Danielle Cohen, “Why Am I Attracted to My Coworker? Meet ‘The Office Ten’”, in New York Magazine
Synonyms:

dime piece
(US, countable, slang) A high level of intensity.
- "Intensities in 10 Cities"1981 March 2, Intensities in 10 Cities, performed by Ted Nugent
- ...
  Marty Di Bergi (Rob Reiner): "Why don't you just make ten louder, and make ten be the top number?"
  Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest): "These go to eleven."1984 March 2, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Rob Reiner (writers), This is Spinal Tap
(countable) The act of rowing ten strokes flat out.
- At the 1,000-metres post we gave a ten, which raised our lead to 1⅔ lengths; the Belgians were rowing hard, but one felt that they still had plenty of spurting power.1911, The Cambridge Review, volume 32, page 486
- Morris gave a ten, and an unbelievable surge ran through the boat, one that I had never felt before.1982, Stanley French, Aspects of Downing history, page 105

Proper noun capitalized: TEN

TEN

(abbreviation) Abbreviation of Tennessee.

Noun (2) capitalized: TEN

TEN (uncountable)

(abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of toxic epidermal necrolysis.

ten meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

ten in Hindi

the cardinal number occurring after 9 and before 11: दस das, दश daś, दह dah
set or group with ten elements: दस das, दश daś, दह dah
playing card with a value of ten: दहला dahlā

ten in Tamil

the cardinal number occurring after 9 and before 11: பத்து pattu

ten in Marathi

the cardinal number occurring after 9 and before 11: दहा dahā

ten in Urdu

the cardinal number occurring after 9 and before 11: دس das
set or group with ten elements: دَہَائی dahāī

More languagesFewer languages

ten in Bengali: দশ doś
ten in Telugu: పది padi
ten in Malayalam: പത്തു pattu, പത്ത് pattŭ
ten in Kannada: ಹತ್ತು hattu
ten in Punjabi: ਦਸ das
ten in Gujarati: દસ das, દશ daś
ten in Odia: ଦଶ daśa
ten in Sanskrit: दश daśa
ten in Sinhala: දහය dahaya
ten in Assamese: দহ doh
ten in Nepali: दस, दश
ten in Pashto: لس las
ten in Tagalog: sampu
ten in Arabic: عَشَرَة ʕašara, عَشْرَة ʕašra
ten in Malay: sepuluh, satu puluh, ekadasa
ten in Indonesian: sepuluh
ten in Persian: ده dah
ten in Thai: สิบ sìp
ten in Vietnamese: mười, chục
ten in Myanmar: တဆယ် ta.hcai
Sindhi: ده daha
Dhivehi: ދިހަ diha
Dzongkha: བཅུ་ཐམ bcu tham

Examples of ten in a sentence

Understanding that numbers are composed of tens and ones is an important foundational concept, setting the stage for work with larger numbers.(Can we date this quote?), “What is a Ten Frame and why is it a useful tool for developing early number relationships and fact fluency?”...
No trees have grown on the windswept Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean for tens of thousands of years — just shrubs and other low-lying vegetation.2024 September 27, Katie Hunt, “Scientists discover hidden ancient forest on treeless island”, in CNN:
Well, there was a beautiful teacher, I mean we're talking a ten, she was blond, had a low-cut dress on, just gorgeous.2006 May 9, Penn Jillette, Michael Goudeau, quoting Chris, 22:22 from the start, in Penn Radio:

All 40 example sentences with ten

Synonyms of ten

Forms of ten

plural	tens

Plural of ten: tens

Origin of ten

PIE word *déḱm̥ From Middle English ten, tene, from Old English tīen, from Proto-West Germanic *tehun, from Proto-Germanic *tehun, from Proto-Indo-European *déḱm̥. Cognate with Scots ten, tene (“ten”), West Frisian tsien (“ten”), Saterland Frisian tjoon (“ten”), North Frisian tiin (“ten”). See also teen.

Words formed from ten

Phrases with ten

43 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with ten

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about ten

What does ten mean?: Ten means the number occurring after nine and before eleven, represented in Arabic numerals (base ten) as 10 and in Roman numerals as X.
What is ten in Hindi?: Ten in Hindi is दस (das), दश (daś), दह (dah). See Ten meaning in Hindi.
How do you use ten in a sentence?: Understanding that numbers are composed of tens and ones is an important foundational concept, setting the stage for work with larger numbers.
What part of speech is ten?: Ten can be a numeral, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce ten?: Ten is pronounced /tɛn/ (UK).

Words near ten in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: ten (page history and authors); TEN (page history and authors); ten (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-inlandnorth-ten.ogg.

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