14 times 17 is 238 — with the shortcut, the division facts and a drill to make it stick
14 × 17 = 238. That is the short answer, and it is the same answer whichever way round you write the two numbers. Below is where 238 comes from, the shortcut that gets you there without counting, the division facts that travel with it, and the fastest way to move it from "I can work it out" to "I just know it".
14 × 17 = 238. Said out loud in the way most classrooms say it: Fourteen seventeens are two hundred and thirty-eight.
Multiplying is repeated addition, so 14 × 17 is fourteen seventeens added together, or equally seventeen fourteens added together. Both routes land on 238.
Written the other way round the answer does not change. 17 × 14 = 238 as well, because multiplication is commutative — the order of the two factors never affects the product. That halves how many facts you actually have to learn: get 14 × 17 and you have 17 × 14 for free.
Split the fourteen into 10 + 4. Ten seventeens are 170, four seventeens are 68, and 170 + 68 = 238.
Because one of the factors is even, the answer has to be even. 238 is, so the parity check passes.
Every multiplication fact comes with a division fact on its back. These four all say the same thing about 14, 17 and 238: 14 × 17 = 238; 17 × 14 = 238; 238 ÷ 14 = 17; 238 ÷ 17 = 14.
Learning them as one family rather than four separate things is the single biggest shortcut in times-table practice. If you can answer "238 divided by 14" as fast as you can answer "14 times 17", the fact is genuinely learned rather than just recognised.
In the 14 times table, 238 is the seventeenth step: 14, 28, 42, 56, 70, 84, 98, 112, 126, 140, 154, 168, 182, 196, 210, 224, 238.
In the 17 times table it is the fourteenth step instead: 17, 34, 51, 68, 85, 102, 119, 136, 153, 170, 187, 204, 221, 238.
Seeing the same number arrive from two directions is what makes it stick. 238 is a landmark in both rows, so whichever table you are drilling you meet it again.
14 × 16 = 224, 14 × 18 = 252, 13 × 17 = 221, 15 × 17 = 255. Those are the answers people most often give by accident when they are a beat too quick.
The gap between neighbours is worth knowing on its own: each extra fourteen adds 14 to the running total, and each extra seventeen adds 17. So if 14 × 17 = 238 is solid, you can reach 14 × 18 by adding 14 rather than starting again.
Recognising a fact and recalling it under time pressure are different skills. A fact you can work out in four seconds still costs you four seconds every time it appears inside a longer calculation.
Short daily bursts beat long sessions: a 60-second drill every day will fix a table faster than one twenty-minute sitting a week. Mix the fact you are learning in among ones you already know so recall is being tested, not the order of a list.
14 times 17 is 238. In words, fourteen seventeens are two hundred and thirty-eight.
17 times 14 is also 238. Swapping the two factors never changes the answer, so 17 × 14 and 14 × 17 both come to 238.
238 ÷ 14 = 17, because 14 × 17 = 238. The matching fact is 238 ÷ 17 = 14.
Split the fourteen into 10 + 4. Ten seventeens are 170, four seventeens are 68, and 170 + 68 = 238.
Yes. 238 is the seventeenth number in the 14 times table, and the fourteenth number in the 17 times table.
Every multiplication fact from 2 × 2 to 20 × 20 has its own page here, and the full grid is on the multiplication chart.