tens
noun1
An inexact quantity or number, typically understood to be between 10 or 20 and 100.
- Our houses are tens of meters apart, so we don't have to worry about noise from our neighbours.
- tens of thousands of voters
3 more examples
- Several tens of hours out on its first journey, while it was testing its track scanner by focusing back along the route it had taken, the ship registered a single massive annihilation explosion deep behind it, where the factory craft had been.1987, Iain M. Banks, “Prologue”, in Consider Phlebas:
- "We are looking at being able to fly [drones] tens of miles from base, which is going to make a huge difference. It is the equivalent of having bobbies on the beat."2025 July 23, Paul Clifton, “Air force: drones' developing railway role”, in RAIL, number 1040, page 31:
- Hope is a decision that tens of thousands of New Yorkers made day after day, volunteer shift after volunteer shift, despite attack ad after attack ad.2025 November 5, Zohran Mamdani, “The Full Transcript of Zohran Mamdani’s Victory Speech”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 05 Nov 2025:
2
Card games, Poker Slang A pair of tens.
3
The period from a year ending in 10 to a year ending in 19 (mostly referring to the 1910s or 2010s); the teens, the oneties.
- Related terms
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