An amount much larger than N but smaller than infinity. "I have 2-to-the-N things to do before I can go out for lunch" means you probably won' t show up. NUMBers of the form two-to-the-N are very important in computing because they represent the value of bit N of a binary nUMBer (counting from 0) and the nUMBer of things you can count with an N bit nUMBer. [Jargon File] (1994-12-06)