Twelve is the largest number with a
single-syllable name in
English. Early
Germanic numbers have been theorized to have been non-
decimal: evidence includes the unusual phrasing of
eleven and twelve, the
former use of "hundred" to refer to groups of
120, and the presence of glosses such as "tentywise" or "ten-count" in medieval texts showing that writers could not presume their readers would normally understand them that way.[1][2][3] Such uses gradually disappeared with the introduction of
Arabic numerals during the
12th-century Renaissance.
Derived from
Old English, twelf and tuelf are first attested in the 10th-century
Lindisfarne Gospels'
Book of John.[note 1][5] It has cognates in every
Germanic language (e.g. German zwölf), whose
Proto-Germanic ancestor has been
reconstructed as *twaliƀi..., from *twa ("
two") and suffix *-lif- or *-liƀ- of uncertain meaning.[5] It is sometimes compared with the
Lithuaniandvýlika, although -lika is used as the suffix for all numbers from 11 to 19 (analogous to "-teen").[5] Every other
Indo-European language instead uses a form of "two"+"
ten", such as the
Latinduōdecim.[5] The usual
ordinal form is "twelfth" but "dozenth" or "duodecimal" (from the Latin word) is also used in some contexts, particularly
base-12 numeration. Similarly, a group of twelve things is usually a "
dozen" but may also be referred to as a "dodecad" or "duodecad". The adjective referring to a group of twelve is "duodecuple".
As with eleven,[6] the earliest forms of twelve are often considered to be connected with Proto-Germanic *liƀan or *liƀan ("to leave"), with the implicit meaning that "two is left" after having already counted to ten.[5] The Lithuanian suffix is also considered to share a similar development.[5] The suffix *-lif- has also been connected with reconstructions of the Proto-Germanic for ten.[6][7]
As mentioned above, 12 has its own name in Germanic languages such as English (
dozen), Dutch (dozijn), German (Dutzend), and Swedish (dussin), all derived from Old French dozaine. It is a compound number in many other languages, e.g. Italian dodici (but in Spanish and Portuguese, 16, and in French, 17 is the first compound number),[dubious –
discuss] Japanese 十二 jūni.[clarification needed]
Written representation
In prose writing, twelve, being the last single-syllable numeral, is sometimes taken as the last number to be written as a word, and
13 the first to be written using digits.
This is not a binding rule, and in English language tradition, it is sometimes recommended to spell out numbers up to and including either nine, ten or twelve, or even ninety-nine or one hundred. Another system spells out all numbers written in one or two words (sixteen, twenty-seven, fifteen thousand, but 372 or 15,001).[8]
In
German orthography, there used to be the widely followed (but unofficial) rule of spelling out numbers up to twelve (zwölf). The
Duden[year needed] (the German standard dictionary) mentions this rule as outdated.
Twelve is the number of divisors of
60 and
90, the second and third
unitary perfect numbers (
6 is the first). It is also the number of distinct
prime factors that belong to the fifth unitary perfect number, the largest known,
The densest three-dimensional
latticesphere packing has each sphere touching twelve other spheres, and this is almost certainly true for any arrangement of spheres (the
Kepler conjecture). Twelve is also the
kissing number in three dimensions.
Twelve is the smallest weight for which a
cusp form exists. This cusp form is the discriminant whose Fourier coefficients are given by the
Ramanujan-function and which is (up to a constant multiplier) the 24th power of the
Dedekind eta function:
Although the series is divergent, methods such as Ramanujan summation can assign finite values to divergent series.
12 is an Anti-Meertens Number. If we power the digits from the end to the prime numbers starting from 2 and then multiply, then the result will be the number Itself.
The number twelve carries religious, mythological and magical
symbolism, generally representing perfection, entirety, or cosmic order in traditions since antiquity.[48]
Several sets of twelve cities are identified in history as a
dodecapolis, the most familiar being the
Etruscan League. In ancient Rome, the twelve
lictors carried
fasces of twelve rods.
Judaism and Christianity
The significance is especially pronounced in the
Hebrew Bible.
Ishmael – the first-born son of
Abraham – has 12 sons/princes (
Genesis 25:16), and
Jacob also has 12 sons, who are the progenitors of the
Twelve Tribes of Israel.[50] This is reflected in Christian tradition, notably in the
twelve Apostles. When
Judas Iscariot is disgraced, a meeting is held (
Acts) to add
Saint Matthias to complete the number twelve once more.
The
Book of Revelation contains much numerical symbolism, and many of the numbers mentioned have 12 as a divisor.
12:1 mentions a woman—interpreted as the
people of Israel, the
Church and the
Virgin Mary—wearing a crown of twelve stars (representing each of the twelve tribes of Israel). Furthermore, there are 12,000 people sealed from each of the twelve tribes of Israel (the
Tribe of Dan is omitted while
Manasseh is mentioned), making a total of
144,000 (which is the square of 12 multiplied by a thousand).
12 was the only number considered to be religiously divine in the 1600s causing many Catholics to wear 12 buttons to church every Sunday. Some extremely devout Catholics would always wear this number of buttons to any occasion on any type of clothing.[citation needed]
And ˹remember˺ when Moses prayed for water for his people, We said, "Strike the rock with your staff." Then twelve springs gushed out, ˹and˺ each tribe knew its drinking place. ˹We then said,˺ "Eat and drink of Allah’s provisions, and do not go about spreading corruption in the land."
We divided them into twelve tribes—each as a community. And We revealed to Moses, when his people asked for water, "Strike the rock with your staff." Then twelve springs gushed out. Each tribe knew its drinking place. We shaded them with clouds and sent down to them manna and quails,1 ˹saying˺, "Eat from the good things We have provided for you." They ˹certainly˺ did not wrong Us, but wronged themselves.
Note 1: Manna (heavenly bread) and quails (chicken-like birds) sustained the children of Israel in the wilderness after they left Egypt.
The last reference is to the number of months and the sacred ones amongst them:
Indeed, the number of months with Allāh is twelve [lunar] months in the register of Allāh [from] the day He created the heavens and the earth; of these, four are sacred.2
The number of twelve jurors in
jury trials is depicted by
Aeschylus in the Eumenides. In the play, the innovation is brought about by the goddess
Athena, who summons twelve citizens to sit as jury.
In English Common Law, the tradition of twelve jurors harks back to the 10th-century law code introduced by
Aethelred the Unready.
The Chinese use a 12-year cycle for time-reckoning called
Earthly Branches.
There are twelve
hours in a half day, numbered one to twelve for both the ante meridiem (a.m.) and the post meridiem (p.m.). 12:00 p.m. is midday or
noon, and 12:00 a.m. is
midnight.
The basic units of time (60 seconds, 60 minutes, 24 hours) are evenly divisible by twelve into smaller units.
The
duodenum (from
Latin: duodecim,
lit. 'twelve') is the first part of the
small intestine, that is about twelve inches (30 cm) long. More precisely, this section of the intestine was measured not in inches but in
fingerwidths. In fact, in
German the name of the duodenum is Zwölffingerdarm, in
Dutch the name is twaalfvingerige darm and in
Bulgarian the name is дванадесетопръстник, all meaning "twelve-finger bowel".
In both
soccer and
American football, the number 12 can be a symbolic reference to the
fans because of the support they give to the 11 players on the field.
Texas A&M University reserves the number 12
jersey for a walk-on player who represents the original
"12th Man", a fan who was asked to play when the team's reserves were low in a college American football game in 1922. Similarly,
Bayern Munich,
Hammarby,
Feyenoord,
Atlético Mineiro,
Flamengo,
Seattle Seahawks,
Portsmouth and
Cork City do not allow field players to wear the number 12 on their jersey because it is reserved for their supporters. It also serves as the jersey number for some the National Football League's best and most well-known quarterback,
Tom Brady.
In
Canadian football, 12 is the maximum number of players that can be on the field of play for each team at any time.
In
cricket, another sport with eleven players per team, teams may select a "12th man", who may replace an injured player for the purpose of fielding (but not batting or bowling).
In
women's lacrosse, each team has 12 players on the field at any given time, except in penalty situations.
In
rugby league, one of the starting second-row forwards wears the number 12 jersey in most competitions. An exception is in the
Super League, which uses static squad numbering.
In
rugby union, one of the starting centres, most often but not always the inside centre, wears the 12 shirt.
The number twelve plays a significant role in the television franchise Battlestar Galactica. The characters come from the
Twelve Colonies of Kobol and worship the twelve gods of Kobol. In the re-imagined series, there are also twelve models of
humanoid Cylons.
Twelve is the number of
pitch classes in an
octave, not counting the duplicated (octave) pitch. Also, the total number of
major keys, (not counting
enharmonic equivalents) and the total number of
minor keys (also not counting equivalents). This applies only to twelve tone
equal temperament, the most common tuning used today in western influenced music.
The twelfth is the
interval of an octave and a fifth. Instruments such as the
clarinet which behave as a stopped cylindrical pipe
overblow at the twelfth.
12 is the maximum score a competing entry can receive by each country in the
Eurovision Song Contest.
Art theory
There are twelve basic
hues in the
color wheel: three primary colors (red, yellow, blue), three secondary colors (orange, green, purple) and six tertiary colors (names for these vary, but are intermediates between the primaries and secondaries).
Games
In the game of
craps, a dice roll of two sixes (value 12) on the come-out roll constitutes a "craps" and the shooter (dice thrower) loses immediately.
Games such as
Backgammon have a long history of 12 points on each side of the gaming board, as evidenced in the XII scripta board in the museum at Ephesus.[57]
In other fields
There are 12 troy ounces in a
troy pound (used for precious metals).
In English, twelve is the number of greatest magnitude that has just one
syllable.
12 is the last number featured on the analogue clock, and also the starting point of the transition from A.M. to P.M. hours or vice-versa.
There are twelve months within a year, with the last one being
December.
The level of grades in which one must attend school typically ends at
12 (although some jurisdictions may include a
thirteenth grade depending on the country).[citation needed]
Twelve hours form half a day, and twelve hours away from another lead to the same time but with a different period (ex. Twelve hours away from 6:00 AM leads to 6:00 PM).
There are normally twelve pairs of
ribs in the human body.
The Twelve Tables or Leges Duodecim Tabularum, more informally simply Duodecim Tabulae, was the ancient
legislation underlying
Roman law.
In the
United States, twelve people are appointed to sit on a
jury for felony trials in all but four states, and in federal and
Washington, D.C. courts. The number of jurors gave the title to the play (and subsequent films) Twelve Angry Men.
The United States is divided into twelve
Federal Reserve Districts (Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Richmond, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Dallas, and San Francisco); American paper currency has serial numbers beginning with one of twelve different letters, A through L, representing the Federal Reserve Bank from which the currency originated.
^Specially, a passage referring to
Judas Iscariot as "one of the
twelve" (an of ðæm tuelfum).[4]
References
^Gordon, E. V. (1957).
Introduction to Old Norse. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press. pp. 292–293. Archived from
the original on 2016-04-15. Retrieved 2017-09-08.
^Stevenson, W. H. (December 1899). "The Long Hundred and its Use in England". Archaeological Review. 4 (5): 313–317.
"The reader should note that each of Wilson's frames [Wilson 82] contains three of ours, with 3 · 48 = 144 vectors, and has slightly larger stabilizer."
^Wilson, Robert A. (1984). "On maximal subgroups of the Fischer group Fi22". Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. 95 (2): 197–222.
doi:
10.1017/S0305004100061491.
ISSN0305-0041.
MR0735364.
^Kleidman, Peter B.; Parker, Richard A.; Wilson, Robert A. (1989). "The maximal subgroups of the Fischer group Fi₂₃". Journal of the London Mathematical Society. Second Series. 39 (1): 89–101.
doi:
10.1112/jlms/s2-39.1.89.
ISSN0024-6107.
MR0989922.
^Weinreich, Th., "Zwölfgötter", Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie, vol. VI, col. 764-848.
^"And it is thought that there is a special significance in the number twelve. It was typified, we know, by many things in the Old Testament; by the twelve sons of Jacob, by the twelve princes of the children of Israel, by the twelve fountains in Elim, by the twelve stones in Aaron's breast-plate, by the twelve loaves of the shew-bread, by the twelve spies sent by Moses, by the twelve stones of which the altar was made, by the twelve stones taken out of Jordan, by the twelve oxen which bare"
P. Young, Daily readings for a year (1863),
p. 150.
Collins, Billie Jean (2002), "Necromancy, Fertility and the Dark Earth: The Use of Ritual Pits in Hittite Cult", in Mirecki, Paul; Meyer, Marvin (eds.),
Magic and Ritual in the Ancient World, Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, pp. 224–233,
ISBN90-04-10406-2