Number to Words Converter
Write any number in words, with ordinal and cheque formats.
About
Number to Words Converter
Writing a number in words is something most people do rarely and under mild pressure, usually standing at a counter with a cheque. The rules are simple and there are a few places they trip people up.
How the naming works
English names numbers in groups of three digits, reading from the right. Each group gets a scale word:
1,234,567 splits into 1 | 234 | 567 and reads as one million, two hundred and thirty-four thousand, five hundred and sixty-seven.
Within each group of three, the pattern is hundreds, then tens, then units. Only the numbers from 1 to 20 have names of their own, along with the tens, and everything else is built from those.
Where hyphens go
Compound numbers from twenty-one to ninety-nine take a hyphen: forty-two, sixty-seven, ninety-nine. Nothing else in a written number does.
So it is "three hundred and forty-five", with a hyphen only between forty and five. Writing "three-hundred-and-forty-five" is a common error, as is "fortyfive".
British and American style
British usage inserts "and" before a final part below one hundred:
| Number | British | American |
|---|---|---|
| 105 | one hundred and five | one hundred five |
| 2,500 | two thousand five hundred | two thousand five hundred |
| 1,042 | one thousand and forty-two | one thousand forty-two |
Both are correct in their own context. American cheque-writing conventions generally keep the "and" for the cents portion regardless, as in "one hundred five dollars and 30/100".
Decimals are read digit by digit
The part after the point is spoken as separate digits, not as a number. 3.14 is "three point one four", never "three point fourteen".
The reason is that reading it as a number is ambiguous: "three point fourteen" could be 3.14 or 3.014. Digit by digit removes the ambiguity, which is why the convention exists in scientific and financial speech.
Money is the exception, where the decimal part is a count of cents rather than a decimal fraction. $12.50 is "twelve dollars and fifty cents".
The billion problem
Two competing systems exist and they disagree above a million.
| Value | Short scale | Long scale |
|---|---|---|
| 106 | million | million |
| 109 | billion | milliard |
| 1012 | trillion | billion |
| 1015 | quadrillion | billiard |
English-speaking countries use the short scale, and this calculator does too. Britain used the long scale until the government formally adopted the short scale in 1974. Much of continental Europe still uses the long scale, so a French or German billion is a thousand times an English one. Translated financial documents need checking rather than assuming.
Ordinal numbers
Ordinals name a position rather than a quantity. Most add "th", and a handful are irregular: first, second, third, fifth, eighth, ninth and twelfth. Numbers ending in "y" change to "ieth", so twenty becomes twentieth.
In compound ordinals only the last word changes: 42nd is "forty-second", not "fortieth-second". 101st is "one hundred and first".
Writing amounts on a cheque
The written line is the legally controlling one. Where the words and the figures disagree, the words generally govern, which is the entire reason the line exists.
Conventions worth following:
- Start at the far left with no leading gap
- Write the whole amount, then the cents as a fraction over 100: "Four hundred and twenty dollars and 50/100"
- Use "and 00/100" for a whole amount rather than leaving it blank
- Draw a line through any space remaining after the amount so nothing can be added
The fraction format exists because digits are harder to alter convincingly than words in that position, and because it is unambiguous about the number of cents.
When to spell numbers out in prose
House styles differ, and the two common conventions are to spell out numbers below ten, or below one hundred. Both agree on a few points: a number starting a sentence is always spelled out, and numbers in the same sentence performing the same role should be formatted the same way.
So "Twenty-five people attended" rather than "25 people attended", and "we ordered 8 chairs and 12 tables" rather than mixing "eight" with "12".
Years and dates
Years follow their own convention and are usually read in pairs rather than as full numbers. 1984 is "nineteen eighty-four", not "one thousand nine hundred and eighty-four".
The 2000s broke the pattern, since "twenty hundred" is not idiomatic, so 2005 became "two thousand and five". The pairing resumed once the second digit was non-zero, and 2024 is commonly "twenty twenty-four" as well as "two thousand and twenty-four". Both are in use and neither is wrong.
Years ending in double zero take "hundred": 1900 is "nineteen hundred". Where a year needs writing formally, as on a legal document, the full form is used and the pairing dropped.
Reading digits aloud
Phone numbers, account numbers and reference codes are read digit by digit rather than as numbers, because the listener is recording characters rather than a quantity.
British speakers say "oh" for zero in these strings and "double" for a repeat, so 0207 700 becomes "oh two oh seven, double seven, double oh". American speakers usually say "zero" and repeat the digit rather than saying "double". Aviation and military use "niner" for nine to keep it distinct from "five" over poor radio.
Zero has an unusual number of names in English depending on context: nought in arithmetic, nil in football scores, love in tennis, oh in phone numbers and duck in cricket. All refer to the same quantity.
Fractions and mixed numbers
Simple fractions have their own words: a half, a third, a quarter. Beyond that the denominator takes the ordinal form, so 1/5 is "one fifth" and 3/8 is "three eighths", with the plural used whenever the numerator is above one.
Mixed numbers insert "and": 2 3/4 is "two and three quarters". Where the fraction is unusual the whole thing may be read as a division instead, so 17/23 is often "seventeen over twenty-three" rather than "seventeen twenty-thirds".
Very large numbers
Beyond quadrillion the names continue as quintillion, sextillion and so on, and they stop being useful long before they run out. Scientific notation takes over, because 1021 is readable where sextillion is a word most people have to look up.
Two names outside the sequence get quoted often. A googol is 10100, named in 1920 by the nine-year-old nephew of the mathematician Edward Kasner. A googolplex is 10 raised to that power, a number with more zeros than there are atoms in the observable universe, which makes it impossible to write out rather than merely tedious.
Negative numbers and zero
A negative number takes "minus" or "negative" before the words, with minus the more common in British usage and negative in American technical writing. So -45 is "minus forty-five" or "negative forty-five".
Zero on its own is written as zero, and it never appears inside a larger number: 1,005 is "one thousand and five", with nothing standing in for the empty hundreds place. This trips up anyone writing a converter, since the group of three has to be skipped entirely rather than named.
Common mistakes
Hyphenating the whole number. Only the twenty-one to ninety-nine part takes a hyphen.
Reading decimals as numbers. 3.14 is "three point one four".
Adding "and" between every group. One "and" before the final part under a hundred, in British usage, and none in American.
Leaving the cents blank on a cheque. Write "and 00/100" and rule out the remaining space.
Common questions
Frequently asked questions
One thousand two hundred and thirty-four in British usage, or one thousand two hundred thirty-four in American usage. The hyphen appears only between thirty and four, since compound numbers from twenty-one to ninety-nine are the only hyphenated part.
Only for compound numbers between twenty-one and ninety-nine: forty-two, sixty-seven, ninety-nine. Nothing else does, so it is three hundred and forty-five with a single hyphen rather than hyphens throughout.
British usage includes the and, American usage omits it. Both are correct in their own context. For cheques written in the United States, the and is normally kept for the cents portion regardless of the style used elsewhere.
Digit by digit after the point. 3.14 is three point one four, not three point fourteen, because reading it as a number cannot distinguish 3.14 from 3.014. Money is the exception, where 12.50 is twelve dollars and fifty cents.
A thousand million in the short scale, which English-speaking countries use and which this converter follows. In the long scale, still used in much of continental Europe, a billion is a million million and a thousand million is called a milliard.
Write the whole units in words, then the cents as a fraction over 100, as in four hundred and twenty dollars and 50/100. Start at the far left, use 00/100 for a whole amount, and rule through the remaining space so nothing can be added.
Because words are much harder to alter convincingly than digits. Adding a zero to a numeral is easy; inserting a word into a filled line is not. Most jurisdictions therefore treat the written amount as controlling where the two disagree.
House styles vary, with the two common rules being to spell out numbers under ten or under one hundred. Every style agrees that a number opening a sentence is spelled out, and that numbers doing the same job in one sentence should be formatted alike.