numeralised

Numeralised is the past tense form of the verb numeralise, meaning to convert numbers written in words or other non-numeric forms into numeral digits. In practice, numeralisation involves expressing quantities with digits rather than spelled-out numbers, and may also refer to standardizing numeric notation within a text or data set.

The term derives from numeral, the symbol or character representing a number, combined with the suffix -ise (British English). The corresponding American English verb is numeralize, with the past tense numeralized. Related noun forms include numeralisation (or numeralization) for the process itself.

Numeralisation is commonly applied in publishing, data processing, and computational contexts. It appears in editing to improve readability or consistency, in data cleaning to ensure uniform numeric formats, and in natural language processing or OCR workflows where textual numbers are converted to digits for machine readability. It can also be used in financial, legal, or academic documents where precise numeric representation is required.

Examples of numeralisation include turning “three hundred twenty-one” into “321,” or converting “fifty thousand and twelve” into “50,012.” Locale considerations matter, as digit grouping and decimal separators vary by region. While numeralisation improves consistency and searchability, it may be balanced against readability for audiences unfamiliar with large-digit strings.

See also: numeral, numeracy, digitisation, numeralisation in typography.