A group or set of twelve things. It is often used for counting items like eggs, donuts, or flowers.
From Old French 'dozaine', from 'douze' meaning 'twelve', from Latin 'duodecim'. The word entered Middle English with the sense of a group of twelve. It reflects older counting systems that favored 12 instead of 10.
Twelve is strangely useful: it divides evenly by 2, 3, 4, and 6, which makes packaging and sharing easier than with ten. That’s why we still buy eggs and donuts by the dozen, and why there are 12 months and 12 hours on a clock face. The 'dozen' is a fossil from a world that counted differently.
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.