dozen gross
- noun
- /ˈdʌzən ɡrɔs/
- If you order a dozen gross of pencils, you'll get 1,728 pencils altogether.
Examples
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The warehouse received a shipment of dozen gross of screws for the new project.
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I ordered a dozen gross of pencils for the school.
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Historical records mention that the craftsman produced a dozen gross of buttons each month.
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Can you believe they sell a dozen gross of donuts at once?
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If you order a dozen gross of pencils, you'll receive 1,728 pencils in total.
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The company manufactured a dozen gross of paper clips to meet the bulk order.
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At the craft fair, she sold a dozen gross of handmade greeting cards.
Synonyms
A group of 1,728 items
Surface Forms
Morphology
If a learner knows 'dozen' (12) and 'gross' (144), 'dozen gross' is transparently interpreted as 'a dozen of gross' = 12 × 144 = 1,728. The meaning follows regular numeric/compositional logic rather than idiomatic change, so it is predictable from the constituents (though it requires basic arithmetic).
Etymology
The compound noun dozen gross comes from counting groups: a dozen is 12 and a gross is 144, so a dozen gross is twelve groups of 144 items and means '1,728'.