"No" as a contraction for "Number"

Factual Questions
1

A finnish guy at work just asked me somethign that I just cannot answer.

Why do we use “no.” as a contraction for “number”?

My guess is that it comes from Latin or another old language that english uses a lot of words from.

I’m sorry if this has been asked before, but it can be a trifle difficult to search for “no.”!

2

WAG - it’s short for numero, ablative (or dative, but most likely ablative in this context) singular form of numerus.

3

I think it’s from the french Nombre

4

This question came up in a thread back in July.

5

None of those answers (or these ones) quite hit the nail on the head, but it’s one of those questions that’s easily answered by picking up a dictionary:

From Collins English Dictionary 21st Century Edition. In France, they usually write it “N°”.

6

When I read this my first thought was “it can’t be so” but I couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong (my French is rather rusty). After some thought (and a visit to Babelfish) the difference between nombre and numéro occured to me:

My [phone] number is … = Mon nombre est …

It’s on page number three = Il se trouve dans la page numéro trois

7

Actually, I think the French use numéro for phone numbers (e.g. Vous vous avez trompé de numéro = You’ve got the wrong number).

I think the distinction is that you use nombre to mean a general number (Dans un petit nombre de cas = In a small number of cases; Garçons et filles en nombre égal = Boys and girls in equal numbers)and numéro to denote a specific number in a series, e.g. phone numbers, house numbers, car registration numbers etc.

But, IANA native French speaker, so don’t quote me on that…

8

Hmm, thinking about it, I think it should be Vous vous êtes trompé de numéro, but you get the point.