Definition of umpteen
: very many : indefinitely numerous
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umpteen was our Word of the Day on 05/21/2015. Hear the podcast!
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Recent Examples of umpteen from the Web
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Treading the path of many business people who enjoy hearing themselves referred to as presidential timber, Mr. Schultz’s way ahead is clear: spend the next umpteen months trying to extend the boomlet that obliging scribes started this week.
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Hundreds of companies create data about people on the internet from Google to umpteen obscure little companies.
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If farmers’ fears come to fruition, consumers could see prices go up not only on agricultural products, but also on the umpteen products that hide corn and soybean inputs such as gas.
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Never mind the umpteen hours of coverage NBC is sending back from South Korea for broadcast TV, cable’s NBCSN, USA Network, CNBC and the Olympics Channel as well as NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports mobile app.
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And for the umpteenth time in the past umpteen years, state and local officials have decided to focus on third-grade reading without doing anything to help school districts improve third-grade reading.
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Aruba With umpteen awards like TripAdvisor’s Traveler’s Choice for Romance, Bucuti & Tara Beach Resort graces Eagle Beach on the western shore of the island.
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The seed bank has cataloged, propagated and conserved ancient vegetable varieties from rare chiles to umpteen varieties of tepary beans.
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Enterprising types had—and have—umpteen ways to sneak money out, from overpaying for imports to smuggling cash across the border in luggage.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'umpteen.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Did You Know?
I'll go to bed and I'll not get up for umpty-eleven months. You know the feeling. The speaker here is war-weary Bill, a character in Patrick MacGill's early 20th-century novel The Great Push. His "umpty" originated as military slang around 1905 and stood for an indefinite number, generally largish. (It was probably created by analogy to actual numbers such as "twenty.") Soon, there followed "umpteen," blending "umpty" and "-teen." "Umpteen" usually describes an indefinite and large number or amount, while the related "umpteenth" is used for the latest or last in an indefinitely numerous series. We only occasionally use "umpty" these days (and even more rarely "umptieth"), but you're bound to hear or read "umpteen" and "umpteenth" any number of times.
Origin and Etymology of umpteen
blend of umpty (such and such) and -teen (as in thirteen)
UMPTEEN Defined for English Language Learners
Learn More about umpteen
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See words that rhyme with umpteen Spanish Central: Translation of umpteen
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