umpteen

det

Etymology: From ump (“a colloquial name for the dash "—" in Morse code”) + -teen. Unrelated to ump as in umpire, and simply a mnemonic rhyming aid.

1. Relatively large but unspecified in number.

   “She's taking umpteen friends with her to the party.”

   “We still claim a population of over 300,000 based on the new city directory, and that chief of the census who threw out umpteen thousand names on us this spring can’t put his name on our slipboard any more.”