sepuluh

Sepuluh is the Indonesian and Malay word for the number ten. As a cardinal numeral, it is used to count objects, measure time and distance, and indicate quantities in everyday language.

Usage examples include sepuluh orang (ten people), sepuluh menit (ten minutes), sepuluh kilometer (ten kilometers), and sepuluh tahun (ten years). When used in counting beyond ten, Indonesian generally forms numbers by combining a numeral with puluh to express tens, as in dua puluh (twenty), tiga puluh (thirty), and so on. Eleven and the teens are formed with separate words: sebelas (eleven) and dua belas, tiga belas, empat belas, lima belas, enam belas, tujuh belas, delapan belas, sembilan belas (twelve to nineteen).

Etymology and morphology: sepuluh is composed of se- plus puluh, where puluh means tens and se- marks a single unit or whole. This reflects the decimal counting system used in Indonesian and Malay. Other numerals with the se- prefix follow related patterns, such as sebelas for eleven and seratus for one hundred, seribu for one thousand.

In broader usage, sepuluh can appear in phrases indicating multiples or repetition, such as sepuluh kali lipat (ten times as much) and sepuluh tahun ke depan (the next ten years). The term remains a fundamental element of the numeral system in both Indonesian and Malay, functioning as the baseline for the decimal counting framework.