What's the word for "twelvely"?

Question

If something is nested twice, it's "double nested".
If something is nested three times, it's "triple nested".
If something is nested twelve times, it's ... What? "Dodecly nested?"

Edit: Apparently, according to websters-online-dictionary.com as quoted below, the adverbial form of twelve actually is "twelvely", but that form is virtually never used. Is there one that is used?

Virtually never used adverbial inflection of the adjective twelve.

Generally, when you get above quadruply, any further words are derived and not in standard usage. Note your examples are different forms of the word, double and triple, are not the same as dodecly, that would be doubly, triply. — Orbling, May 08 '11 at 17:51
Ah I suppose my first two examples are adjectives not adverbs. Thanks for pointing that out! — corsiKa, May 08 '11 at 17:59
Twelvely may be an attention-getter, but would not be a form for normal use, just as we would not use twoly, threely, fourly, etc. — mgkrebbs, May 08 '11 at 18:08
possible duplicate of How to form single, double, triple… and uni-, bi-, tri-… words? — RegDwigнt, May 08 '11 at 18:32
I have to put in my vote for twelvce. Once-nested, twice-nested, twelvce-nested. — Jon Purdy, May 08 '11 at 20:15
Looking at google Ngrams, the most common terms for n-tuply seem to go ... quadruply, quintuply, sextuply, sevenly, eightly, ninely, tenly, ... These were much more common two centuries ago, but even then anything above ten was extremely rare. — Peter Shor, May 09 '11 at 02:44

score 10 · Accepted Answer · answered May 08 '11 at 17:58

10

Nested twelve times is the clearest, most unambiguous, and most common way to say this. You could also say nested twelvefold—*twelvely, however, does not appear in the OED and I would not recommend using it.

answered May 08 '11 at 17:58

waiwai933

14,563

1

The OED attests duodecuple as an adjective meaning twelvefold, and gives this citation: “1727 Arbuthnot Coins (J.), ― To establish the duodecuple proportion.” However, “duodecuply nested” just doesn’t roll off the tongue at all so smoothly as “triply nested” does. – tchrist Aug 12 '12 at 18:14
1

Or possibly 'nested twelve deep'? – StoneyB on hiatus Aug 12 '12 at 19:20

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered May 08 '11 at 18:03

6

Is it programming specific or ...? if not, i'd recommand tuple, as :

Single (1) (also: singleton, sole, only, etc.)
Double (2) (also: pair, twice)
Triple (3) (also: triplet, treble, thrice, threesome, troika, trio)
Quadruple (4)
Quintuple or Pentuple (5)
Sextuple or Hextuple (6)
Septuple (7)
Octuple (8)
Nonuple (9)
Decuple (10)
Hendecuple or Undecuple (11)
Duodecuple (12)
Centuple (100)

answered May 08 '11 at 18:03

Gigili

5,298

2

In this case, it is. Someone has 12 nested loops. (Yes I told him it's a bad idea!) – corsiKa May 08 '11 at 18:48
2

@glowcoder: Please tell me that program is not running a nuclear power plant or an air traffic control system. – e.James May 08 '11 at 19:14
@James It's actually for a test scenario. There are 12 options to run, (OS, Database type, etc) and wants to run through each combination. I estimate it to take at least 88 thousand server-hours to test, and that's a very conservative estimate! – corsiKa May 08 '11 at 20:11

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered May 08 '11 at 18:02

2

There is no word that is commonly used for this, although you can construct such terms from the standard affixes (as shown here). Using this approach, one could say "duodecatuply nested". (Note that the form should be an adverb, like triply, rather than an adjective like triple.)

However, for clarity one should avoid such constructed words and use a more understandable word sequence such as nested twelve times.

answered May 08 '11 at 18:02

mgkrebbs

6,927

I don't think "duodecatuply" is correctly formed. The dictionaries I checked show "duodecuple" as the word, without any "-at-" in it. – herisson Sep 26 '17 at 03:58

What's the word for "twelvely"?

3 Answers3