How do you write a number in words?
Split the digits into groups of three from the right, spell each group as a number from one to nine hundred ninety-nine, and follow it with its scale word: thousand, million, billion or trillion. So 1,215 is "one thousand" plus "two hundred fifteen". This converter does exactly that for any whole number below one quadrillion, in English.
Using the converter
- Type a whole number with no commas or spaces inside it, such as
1215or-17. - Click Convert.
- Copy the words.
Spaces before or after the number are ignored, and leading zeros are dropped, so 007 gives seven.
Worked examples
| Number | Words |
|---|---|
| 42 | forty-two |
| 101 | one hundred one |
| 1024 | one thousand twenty-four |
| 1215 | one thousand two hundred fifteen |
| 2026 | two thousand twenty-six |
| 21000 | twenty-one thousand |
| 1000001 | one million one |
| -17 | negative seventeen |
Walk through 1,000,001 to see how the groups work. Split into threes it's 1 | 000 | 001. The first group is "one million". The middle group is zero, so it's skipped entirely, with no "zero thousand". The last group is "one". That gives one million one.
Style conventions the output follows
Number spelling varies between style guides, so it helps to know which choices this tool makes:
- Hyphens from twenty-one to ninety-nine. Compound tens are hyphenated (
forty-two,ninety-nine), and nothing else is. - No "and". American usage leaves it out, so you get
one hundred one. In British English you'd normally write "one hundred and one". If you need that style, insert "and" after each "hundred" that's followed by more words. - No "twelve hundred". 1215 always comes out as
one thousand two hundred fifteen, never the informal "twelve hundred fifteen". The same goes for years: 1984 isone thousand nine hundred eighty-four, not "nineteen eighty-four". - Short scale. A billion here is 1,000,000,000. Older British usage and many European languages use "billion" for a million million, which can cause a thousand-fold misunderstanding in translated documents.
- All lowercase. Capitalise the first word yourself if the words start a sentence.
Scale words
| Scale word | Value | Digits |
|---|---|---|
| thousand | 10^3 | 1,000 |
| million | 10^6 | 1,000,000 |
| billion | 10^9 | 1,000,000,000 |
| trillion | 10^12 | 1,000,000,000,000 |
The converter stops below a quadrillion (10^15). The upper limit is a deliberate cap rather than a precision problem, since JavaScript can represent every whole number exactly up to Number.MAX_SAFE_INTEGER, a little over 9 quadrillion.
What it rejects
| Input | Error |
|---|---|
12.5 |
Enter a whole number, e.g. 1024. |
1,000 |
Enter a whole number, e.g. 1024. |
1e3 |
Enter a whole number, e.g. 1024. |
+5 |
Enter a whole number, e.g. 1024. |
1000000000000000 |
Enter a number smaller than one quadrillion. |
Strip separators and plus signs before converting, and round or truncate decimals first.
Writing amounts on cheques and contracts
Cheques, invoices and many contracts ask for an amount in words as well as in figures. The converter only handles whole numbers, so for an amount like 1,250.75:
- Enter
1250and convert it toone thousand two hundred fifty. - Capitalise the first letter and add the currency: "One thousand two hundred fifty dollars".
- Add the cents yourself, usually as a fraction: "and 75/100".
Check your bank's or your jurisdiction's own conventions; this tool doesn't apply any of them for you.
Related tools
To go from words back to digits, use word to number, which also accepts "and" and "minus". If you're preparing a document that needs numerals in other forms, the Roman numeral converter handles dates and outline numbering, and the percentage calculator and word counter are handy for checking figures and length in the same draft.
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