cardinal number: Meaning and Definition of

car'dinal num'ber

Pronunciation: [key]
  1. Also calledany of the numbers that express amount, as one, two, three, etc. (distinguished from ordinal number).
  2. Also calleda number or symbol analogous to the number of elements in a finite set, being identical for two sets that can be placed into one-to-one correspondence:, a, … a is n. The cardinal number of the set a
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.