Ten

How to spell ten

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce ten

What does ten mean?

1. otherThe cardinal number equal to nine plus one, written as 10.

Ten in a sentence

• The recipe needs ten minutes in the oven.

• There were ten chairs around the table.

Where does ten come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word ten comes from the Old English tien or ten, the native Anglo-Saxon name for the number that follows nine. It traces back to the Proto-Germanic tehun, the shared ancestor that also gave German zehn and Dutch tien, and beyond that to a very old Indo-European root dekm that meant 'ten'. That same ancient root surfaces in borrowed forms across English, including the Latin decem (seen in 'decimal' and 'December', once the tenth month) and the Greek deka (seen in 'decade'). Because ten is one of the oldest and most frequently used words in the language, its spelling has stayed short and stable for over a thousand years. The simple three-letter form has no silent letters or hidden traps, which is exactly why almost no adult ever pauses over it.

How the word is built

• ten (whole word; from Old English tien, the cardinal number)