A lakh (; abbreviated L; sometimes written lac) is a unit in the
Indian numbering system
The Indian numbering system is used in all South Asian countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan) to express large numbers. The terms ''lakh'' or 1,00,000 (one hundred thousand, written as ''100,00 ...
equal to
one hundred thousand
100,000 (one hundred thousand) is the natural number following 99,999 and preceding 100,001. In scientific notation, it is written as 105.
Terms for 100,000
In India, Pakistan and South Asia, one hundred thousand is called a lakh, and is wri ...
(100,000;
scientific notation
Scientific notation is a way of expressing numbers that are too large or too small (usually would result in a long string of digits) to be conveniently written in decimal form. It may be referred to as scientific form or standard index form, o ...
: 105). In the
Indian
Indian or Indians may refer to:
Peoples South Asia
* Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor
** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country
* South Asia ...
2,2,3 convention of
digit grouping
A decimal separator is a symbol used to separate the integer part from the fractional part of a number written in decimal form (e.g., "." in 12.45). Different countries officially designate different symbols for use as the separator. The choi ...
, it is written as 1,00,000. For example, in India, 150,000
rupees
Rupee is the common name for the currencies of
India, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, Seychelles, and Sri Lanka, and of former currencies of Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (as the Gulf rupee), British East Africa, B ...
becomes 1.5 ''lakh'' rupees, written as 1,50,000 or INR 1,50,000.
It is widely used both in official and other contexts in
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
,
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
,
Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
,
Myanmar
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...
,
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...
,
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
, and
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
. It is often used in
Bangladeshi
Bangladeshis ( bn, বাংলাদেশী ) are the citizens of Bangladesh, a South Asian country centered on the transnational historical region of Bengal along the eponymous bay.
Bangladeshi citizenship was formed in 1971, when the ...
,
Indian
Indian or Indians may refer to:
Peoples South Asia
* Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor
** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country
* South Asia ...
Sri Lankan English
Sri Lankan English (SLE) is the English language as it is used in Sri Lanka, a term dating from 1972. Sri Lankan English is principally categorised as the Standard Variety and the Nonstandard Variety, which is called as "Not Pot English". The c ...
.
Usage
In
Indian English
Indian English (IE) is a group of English dialects spoken in the republic of India and among the Indian diaspora. English is used by the Indian government for communication, along with Hindi, as enshrined in the Constitution of India. E ...
, the word is used both as an
attributive
In grammar, an attributive expression is a word or phrase within a noun phrase that modifies the head noun. It may be an:
* attributive adjective
* attributive noun
* attributive verb
or other part of speech, such as an attributive numeral.
...
and non-attributive noun with either an unmarked or marked ("-s") plural, respectively. For example: "1 ''lakh'' people"; "''lakhs'' of people"; "20 ''lakh''
rupee
Rupee is the common name for the currencies of
India, Mauritius, Nepal, Pakistan, Seychelles, and Sri Lanka, and of former currencies of Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (as the Gulf rupee), British East Africa, B ...
s"; "''lakhs'' of rupees". In the abbreviated form, usage such as "5L" or "5 lac" (for "5 ''lakh'' rupees") is common. In this system of numeration, 100 ''lakh'' is called one ''
crore
A crore (; abbreviated cr) denotes ten million (10,000,000 or 107 in scientific notation) and is equal to 100 lakh in the Indian numbering system. It is written as 1,00,00,000 with the local 2,2,3 style of digit group separators (one lakh is e ...
'' and is equal to 10 million.
Silver market
The term is also used in the pricing of silver on the international
precious metal
Precious metals are rare, naturally occurring metallic chemical elements of high economic value.
Chemically, the precious metals tend to be less reactive than most elements (see noble metal). They are usually ductile and have a high lustre. ...
s market, where one ''lakh'' equals of
silver
Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...
.
Etymology and regional variants
The modern word ''lakh'' derives from sa, लक्ष, translit=lakṣa, originally denoting "mark, target, stake in gambling", but also used as the numeral for "100,000" in Gupta-era Classical Sanskrit (''
Yājñavalkya Smṛti
The ''Yajnavalkya Smriti'' ( sa, याज्ञवल्क्य स्मृति, IAST: ') is one of the many Dharma-related texts of Hinduism composed in Sanskrit. It is dated between the 3rd to 5th-century CE, and belongs to the Dharmas ...
'', ''
Harivaṃśa
The ''Harivamsa'' ( , literally "the genealogy of Hari") is an important work of Sanskrit literature, containing 16,374 shlokas, mostly in the '' anustubh'' metre. The text is also known as the ''Harivamsa Purana.'' This text is believed to ...
'').
Another possible etymology comes from the root word for the
lac
Lac is the resinous secretion of a number of species of lac insects, of which the most commonly cultivated is ''Kerria lacca''.
Cultivation begins when a farmer gets a stick that contains eggs ready to hatch and ties it to the tree to be infes ...
bug, used to produce
shellac
Shellac () is a resin secreted by the female lac bug on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. It is processed and sold as dry flakes and dissolved in alcohol to make liquid shellac, which is used as a brush-on colorant, food glaze and ...
. The word lakh is a unit in the
Indian numbering system
The Indian numbering system is used in all South Asian countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan) to express large numbers. The terms ''lakh'' or 1,00,000 (one hundred thousand, written as ''100,00 ...
for and presumably refers to the large number of insects that swarm on host trees, up to .
* In Assamese: ''lokhyo'', or ''lakh''
* In
Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
: natively (tadbhava) known as ''lākh'', though some use the ardha-tatsama ''lokkho''.
* In
Hindi
Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
: ''lākh''
* In
Dhivehi
Dhivehi, also spelled Divehi, may refer to:
*Dhivehi people, an ethnic group native to the historic region of the Maldive Islands.
*Dhivehi language, an Indo-Aryan language predominantly spoken by about 350,000 people in the Republic of Maldives
...
: ލައްކަ ''la'kha''
* In
Gujarati
Gujarati may refer to:
* something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India
* Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat
* Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them
* Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...
: ''lākh''
* In
Kannada
Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...
: ''lakṣha''
* In
Kashmiri Kashmiri may refer to:
* People or things related to the Kashmir Valley or the broader region of Kashmir
* Kashmiris, an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley
* Kashmiri language, their language
People with the name
* Kashmiri Saikia Baruah ...
: ''lachh''
* In
Khasi
Khasi may refer to:
* Khasi people, an ethnic group of Meghalaya, India
* Khasi language, a major Austroasiatic language spoken in Meghalaya, India
* Khāṣi language, an Indo-Aryan language of Jammu and Kashmir, India
See also
* Khasi Hills
* Gh ...
: ''lak''
* In
Malayalam
Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...
: ''laksham''
* In
Marathi
Marathi may refer to:
*Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India
*Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people
*Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece
See also
*
* ...
: ''lākh/laksha''
* In Meitei: ꯂꯥꯛ ''lāk''
* In Nepali: ''lākh''
* In
Odia
Odia, also spelled Oriya or Odiya, may refer to:
* Odia people in Odisha, India
* Odia language, an Indian language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family
* Odia alphabet, a writing system used for the Odia languag ...
Shahmukhi
Shahmukhi (, ) is a Persian alphabet, Perso-Arabic alphabet script used historically by Punjabi Muslims (primarily in present-day Punjab, Pakistan, Pakistani Punjab) to write the Punjabi language. It is generally written in the Nastaʿlīq Callig ...
: ,
Gurmukhi
Gurmukhī ( pa, ਗੁਰਮੁਖੀ, , Shahmukhi: ) is an abugida developed from the Laṇḍā scripts, standardized and used by the second Sikh guru, Guru Angad (1504–1552). It is used by Punjabi Sikhs to write the language, commonly r ...
Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
**Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, nati ...
: ''latcham''
* In
Telugu
Telugu may refer to:
* Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India
*Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India
* Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language
** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode
S ...
Crore
A crore (; abbreviated cr) denotes ten million (10,000,000 or 107 in scientific notation) and is equal to 100 lakh in the Indian numbering system. It is written as 1,00,00,000 with the local 2,2,3 style of digit group separators (one lakh is e ...
*
English numerals
English number words include numerals and various words derived from them, as well as a large number of words borrowed from other languages.
Cardinal numbers
Cardinal numbers refer to the size of a group. In English, these words are numerals.
...
*
Myriad
A myriad (from Ancient Greek grc, μυριάς, translit=myrias, label=none) is technically the number 10,000 (ten thousand); in that sense, the term is used in English almost exclusively for literal translations from Greek, Latin or Sinospher ...
*
Names of large numbers
Two naming scales for large numbers have been used in English and other European languages since the early modern era: the long and short scales. Most English variants use the short scale today, but the long scale remains dominant in many non-Eng ...