umpteen
- adjective
- /ˈʌmpˌtin/
- Informal
- After umpteen attempts, he finally learned to play the guitar.
- umpteen times
- umpteen years
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Watch on YouTubeSo we actually, we taxpayers, I mean, are paying for the ZZ royal king and his umpteen wives.
- So we actually, we taxpayers, I mean, are paying for the ZZ royal king and his umpteen wives.
- How how can you love a woman and commit adultery for umpteen years and going around raping and killing women that he's lured into his web of deceit?
- But if you think about the fashion of the day, for the Victorian woman, fashion was a real prison with your corset, umpteen petty cats.
Examples
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We're not going down the same corridor umpteen times.
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Didn't you pay attention to the last umpteen elections?
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We have umpteen trading accounts.
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You got about umpteen calls from Vernon.
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When technology improves, umpteen items are out of print and will be sold out at greatly discounted prices.
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So sort through the umpteen different brands of detergent and figure out the exact best one for me.
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I was just thinking about how I haven't seen a blog post from you in umpteen weeks now!
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"And how can you read all the papers and keep up to snuff if you serve on umpteen boards?"
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I worry about him, living alone in Greenwich Village, moving from one short-lived writing job to another, smoking umpteen packs a day.
Fiction book (2002) -
Yes, I can find umpteen million things to critique it on factually, politically, and morally.
Blog text (27)
Synonyms
A very large number that people use to show exaggeration
A large unknown number or amount
So many that you cannot count them
A very large number people say when they do not know the exact amount
Describes something that has happened many times and annoys people
Antonyms
Compounds
How Many
Surface Forms
Etymology
Umpteen comes from a playful old word umpty plus the familiar -teen (as in 'thirteen'). Umpty was a joking way to name any unknown number, so umpteen means 'very many' or 'a lot' when the exact number is 'not an exact number'.