The author has limited vocabulary. They probably had no access to a thesaurus, worse yet, they are a children's book writer. They have to use those little words, ironically. They tell nothing.
The author maybe can't count as well. Cats are discrete objects. You can put numbers on each cat and count them one by one, you do not need number theory.
You would have received a better answer if you gave us the author, the context (story), and the choices if any.
