Convert numbers into words
Type a number and read it written out, in British or American English: one hundred and five in British English, one hundred five in American.
Whole numbers up to 36 digits, negatives and decimals. Commas or spaces between thousands are fine, and so is a decimal comma where it cannot be one of them: 1 500,5.
one thousand five hundred
- Digits
- Other convention
- Ordinal
- Roman numeral
- Even or odd
What the converter follows
Groups of three. The digits are marked off in threes from the right, then said from the left: each group as an ordinary number under a thousand followed by its scale word, except the last group, which has none. A group of zeros is skipped: 2,001,000 is two million one thousand.
One hyphen rule. Every compound from twenty-one to ninety-nine takes a hyphen, wherever it falls in the number: 4,567 is four thousand five hundred and sixty-seven.
Two places for “and”. British English puts it after a hundred when something follows, and before a last part under a hundred when something larger came first. So 1,000,005 is one million and five, but 1,000,105 is one million one hundred and five, with only one. American English uses neither: 1,000,105 is one million one hundred five. The switch on the converter chooses between the two.
Contents
Words
Money
The reference
- How to write numbers in wordsWhen to spell a number out and when to leave it in digits, with the hyphen and comma rules that decide the rest.
- British and American number formattingWhere the two conventions differ, why one hundred and five and one hundred five are both correct, and which to use where.
- Cardinal and ordinal numbersOne and first, two and second: what separates the two kinds of number word, and the seven ordinals that are irregular.
- How to write large numbersThousand, million, billion and past them, the scale words in order, and where to put the commas.
- The long and short scaleWhy a billion used to mean a million million in Britain, what changed, and how to read an older document.
- How Roman numerals workSeven letters, two rules, and the six subtractive pairs that make up every standard numeral.
- Common Roman numeral mistakesWhy IC is not 99, why IIII survives on clock faces, and four other common errors.
- How to write money in wordsWriting an amount on a cheque, an invoice or a contract, and what to do with the cents.
- What the style guides say about numbersFour free style guides on one to nine, commas, millions, percentages, ordinals, fractions, ranges and dates, quoted side by side.
- Place value explainedWhat each column in a number is worth, and why the same digit means different things in different places.
- Expanded form explainedThree ways a number is taken apart in a maths class, and the two different things standard form means.
- How to write decimals in wordsPoint seven five or seventy-five hundredths: the two readings of a decimal and when each one is used.
The reference, with each guide’s short answer
A ready reckoner
| Figures | In words |
|---|---|
| 90 | ninety |
| 100 | one hundred |
| 1,000 | one thousand |
| 1,500 | one thousand five hundred |
| 10,000 | ten thousand |
| 100,000 | one hundred thousand |
| 1,000,000 | one million |
| 49 | XLIX in Roman numerals |
| 2026 | MMXXVI in Roman numerals |
| R1,500 | one thousand five hundred rand |
Questions
- Is it one hundred and five, or one hundred five?
- Both are correct. British English puts an “and” after the hundred and American English leaves it out, and the same split runs through South African, Indian and Australian usage on one side and American on the other. The converter shows whichever you pick and tells you what the other one says.
- How large a number can it write out?
- Thirty-six digits, which is one short of a thousand decillion. The limit comes from English: above it there is no agreed name for the next group of three.
- Does it handle decimals and negatives?
- Yes. A decimal is read digit by digit after the point, which is how one is said aloud: 3.14 is three point one four. A negative is written with “negative” in front, as in negative forty-two. “Minus forty-two” means the same, and the words-to-number tool reads either.
- Is anything I type sent anywhere?
- No. Every conversion happens in your own browser, and this site never transmits, logs or stores what you type. There is no account to make.
- Why does my textbook disagree about what a billion is?
- Because it changed. On the short scale used here and in modern British, American and South African usage, a billion is a thousand million. On the old British long scale it was a million million. Older books and some European languages still use the long scale.