numeral

Also known as num., number word, numerical word, NU

word class(es) designating numbers, considered as a part of speech in some grammars while coinciding with other parts of speech in others

AI overview

A numeral is a word used to express or represent a number, like "five," "twenty," or "third." Different grammar systems classify numerals in different ways—some treat them as their own distinct word category, while others group them with adjectives or other parts of speech.

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Commons category: Numerals
equivalent class: purl.org/linguistics/gold/Numeral
exact match: www.lexinfo.net/ontology/3.0/lexinfo#numeral
Stack Exchange tag: linguistics.stackexchange.com/tags/numerals
entry in abbreviations table: num.

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Article

In linguistics, a numeral in the broadest sense is a word or phrase that describes a numerical quantity. Some theories of grammar use the word "numeral" to refer to cardinal numbers that act as a determiner that specify the quantity of a noun, for example the "two" in "two hats". Some theories of grammar do not include determiners as a part of speech and consider "two" in this example to be an adjective. Some theories consider "numeral" to be a synonym for "number" and assign all numbers (including ordinal numbers like "first") to a part of speech called "numerals". Numerals in the broad sense can also be analyzed as a noun ("three is a small number"), as a pronoun ("the two went to town"), or for a small number of words as an adverb ("I rode the slide twice").

Numerals can express relationships like quantity (cardinal numbers), sequence (ordinal numbers), frequency (once, twice), and part (fraction).