The English language has a number of words for indefinite and fictitious numbers — inexact terms of indefinite size, used for comic effect, for exaggeration, as placeholder names, or when precision is unnecessary or undesirable. One technical term for such words is "non-numerical vague quantifier".
Read more about Indefinite And Fictitious Numbers: General Placeholder Names, Umpteen, -illion, Well-defined Numbers That Are Not Precisely Known
Famous quotes containing the words indefinite, fictitious and/or numbers:
“Every word we speak is million-faced or convertible to an indefinite number of applications. If it were not so we could read no book. Your remark would only fit your case, not mine.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity; for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honour, and fictitious benevolence.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“And when all bodies meet
In Lethe to be drowned,
Then only numbers sweet
With endless life are crowned.”
—Robert Herrick (1591–1674)