linguistics Linguistics is the science, scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure ...

, more precisely in

traditional grammar Traditional grammar (also known as classical grammar) is a framework for the description of the structure of a language. The roots of traditional grammar are in the work of classical Greek language, Greek and Latin language, Latin Philology, phil ...

, a multiplier is a word that counts how many times its object should be multiplied, such as ''single'' or ''double''. They are contrasted with

distributive number In linguistics, a distributive numeral, or distributive number word, is a word that answers "how many times each?" or "how many at a time?", such as ''singly'' or ''doubly''. They are contrasted with multipliers. In English, this part of speec ...

s. In English, this

part of speech In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are as ...

is relatively marginal, and less recognized than

cardinal numbers In mathematics, cardinal numbers, or cardinals for short, are a generalization of the natural numbers used to measure the cardinality (size) of sets. The cardinality of a finite set is a natural number: the number of elements in the set. The ...

and

ordinal numbers In set theory, an ordinal number, or ordinal, is a generalization of ordinal numerals (first, second, th, etc.) aimed to extend enumeration to infinite sets. A finite set can be enumerated by successively labeling each element with the least ...

English

In English native multipliers exist, formed by the suffix ''-fold'', as in ''onefold'', ''twofold'', ''threefold''. However, these have largely been replaced by ''single'', ''double'', and ''triple'', which are of Latin origin, via French. They have a corresponding distributive number formed by suffixing ''-y'' (reduction of Middle English ''-lely'' > ''-ly''), as in ''singly''. However, the series is primarily used for the first few numbers; ''quadruple'' and ''quintuple'' are less common, and ''hextuple'' and above are quite rare. For larger multiples a cardinal number and a counter are used instead, such as "five portions" or "a portion five times the normal size" instead of "a quintuple portion". In espresso servings, the Italian ''solo'', ''doppio'', and ''triplo'' are sometimes used, with '' doppio'' being most common. The Latin multipliers ''simplex'', ''duplex'', ''triplex'' etc. have occasional use in English, primarily in technical use, though '' duplex'' is more common.

English

See also