From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishcardinal numberˌcardinal ˈnumber (also cardinal) noun [countable] HMNa number such as 1,2, or 3, that shows how many of something there are, but not what order they are in → ordinal number
Examples from the Corpus
cardinal number• And so ostensibly are the greatest cardinal number and the abominable snowman.• Like the greatest cardinal number, Russell's class similarly fails to satisfy the requirement of coherence.• Take the familiar mathematical example of the greatest cardinal number. 