telephone number

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telephone number (plural telephone numbers)

1. The sequence of digits used to identify a particular destination telephone in a network.

   Synonyms: number, phone number; digits (informal)

   Hypernym: number

   Hyponym: wrong number

   • 1902, J[ames] W[infield] Scott, “The Porter and the Ladies of Bagdad”, in Jack Hardin’s Rendering of the Arabian Nights: Being a New Translation in Up-to-Date English […], Boston, Mass.: Herbert B. Turner & Co., published April 1903, →OCLC, page 130:

     Well, that story satisfied old O’Herrin’s curiosity. But he wanted to know the fairy’s telephone number, and when Zobedee fetched her fairylets in by burning a lot of hair, while the grand vizier and the boss eunuch held their noses, he asked her to change the spaniels back into women.

2. (in the plural, figurative, humorous) A large number.

   Synonym: phone number

   Hypernym: number

   How much is that Rolls Royce? We are talking telephone numbers.