innumerable

Innumerable is an adjective that expresses a quantity so large that it cannot be counted. In everyday language it conveys vastness or abundance, and does not necessarily imply literal infinity. The word is often used to mean “too many to tally,” as in innumerable stars or innumerable grains of sand.

Etymology traces innumerable to Latin innumerabilis, from in- “not” + numerabilis “able to be counted,” passing into English through Old French innombrable. In modern usage it typically accompanies countable nouns, but guides warn against the pleonastic phrase innumerable number.

In common style, innumerable describes items that are numerous in practice, finite but effectively uncountable, or simply beyond precise counting. It is frequently employed for rhetorical emphasis and literary effect. Some editors note that its use before a noun may feel inflated, and prefer alternatives such as countless, myriad, or numerous depending on the intended nuance.

Mathematics treats the term as non-technical. A set may be finite, countably infinite, or uncountable; these are formal classifications. While innumberable or innumerable is sometimes used informally to describe infinite or very large collections, precise mathematical language uses terms like infinite, countable, or uncountable.

See also: countable and uncountable sets, infinity, enumeration. The concept broadly relates to the idea of quantities too large to be precisely counted, whether finite and practical or infinite.