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  1. hundreds and thousands love

Definitions

Wiktionary

  1. n. An indefinite but emphatically large number.
  2. n. UK, Australia, New Zealand Tiny balls or strands of multicoloured sugar, sprinkled over ice cream, desserts or party foods.

Examples

  • “It is a matter of unfortunate record that the upsurge of violence in East Timor after the ballot on 30 August swept up not just UN staff members, but hundreds and thousands of East Timorese.”

    Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia

  • “Luckily there were plenty of these, because a man who lived in the Moat House once went to Rome, where they throw hundreds and thousands at each other in play, and call it a Comfit Battle or Battaglia di Confetti (that's real Italian).”

    The Wouldbegoods

  • “A free-running winch, nylon cord marked off in hundreds and thousands of feet.”

    Ice Station Zebra

  • “History of the city of Beit-Slokh" makes mention of hundreds and thousands of martyrs slain in this city (Moesinger, "Monumenta”

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 8: Infamy-Lapparent

  • “I have known some hundreds and thousands of dollars become in the credulous eyes of suitors as many millions, and a few millions become multimillions.”

    My Memories of Eighty Years

  • “It is truly wonderful, that so many books should have been preserved unmutilated, through hundreds and thousands of years; and during vicissitudes so great; and especially when powerful tyrants were so desirous of annihilating the religion of the Jews, and used their utmost exertions to destroy their sacred books.”

    The Canon of the Old and New Testaments Ascertained, or The Bible Complete without the Apocrypha and Unwritten Traditions.

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reverse dictionary (6)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. macromolecule
  1. boat people
  1. high-energy
  1. round
  1. spider
  1. denomination

tags (5)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. sprinkles
  1. ice cream toppings
  1. australia
  1. British
  1. sweet

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Comments

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  • delirium Ok, I'm going crazy here! Because I'm sure I read somewhere that these are called "cents et milles" in French... apart from "nonpareils," but I can't find any reference to that. :/ Oct 16, 2008

  • reesetee *snicker* Apr 10, 2008

  • yarb Did you hear about the man they found dead, with chocolate flakes up each nostril, raspberry sauce all over his head and covered from head to toe in hundreds and thousands?

    Police say he topped himself. Apr 10, 2008

  • frindley In Australia hundreds and thousands are small (1 to 2mm in diameter), spherical, and coloured (e.g. red, blue, yellow, orange, pink, green...), but not metallic.

    Sprinkles is a close equivalent, but not exact, because it appears from Google Images that "sprinkles" can also refer to the cylindrical (vermicelli) variation (about 1mm diameter, 2 to 3mm long). In Australia those would be called dollars and cents. Or at least they were when I was a kid.

    Apr 10, 2008

  • reesetee The little edible silver (or gold) balls are called dragĂ©es, are they not? The candy thingies are usually called jimmies or sprinkles, at least in my area. And now that I'm looking up nonpareils, I see that the term originally applied to the little white balls on the round chocolate discs, not the chocolate itself.

    Oh, I'm so confused. I think I'll have a candy bar. Dec 8, 2007

  • jennarenn Oh, are you talking about those little silver balls? Feb 19, 2007

  • sionnach We always referred to hundreds and thousands in Ireland, where I grew up. They may not correspond to jimmies exactly; in particular, hundreds and thousands are typically spherical, look slightly metallic and include at least two different sizes. I think we used to call sprinkles vermicelli. Feb 15, 2007

  • lorilori I love it! I've heard this used in Australia. It's much better than "jimmies." :) Feb 15, 2007

  • abraxaszugzwang Capital! Where is this used? Feb 15, 2007

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‘hundreds and thousands’ has been looked up 1527 times, added to 6 lists, commented on 10 times, and is not a valid Scrabble word.