umpteen

Definition

Relatively large but unspecified in number.

Etymology

From ump (“colloquial name for the dash "—" in Morse code”) + -teen. Unrelated to ump as in "umpire", simply a mnemonic rhyming aid.

Example Sentences

• "She's taking umpteen friends with her to the party."
• "We still claim a population of over 300,000 based on the new city directory, and that chief of the census who threw out umpteen thousand names on us this spring can’t put his name on our slipboard any more."
• "Make sure your music software is stand-alone, too (ie, it doesn’t have to be loaded into a utility—we don’t want to have to mess around with bits of wire or umpteen different programs just to hear your maestropiece)."