Navigation
Home
Resources
Irregular verbs quizzes English conjugator English-French dictionary French dictionary English dictionary Monolingual dictionaries Scores by institution Free sample tests FAQ Pricing Tourism training Blog Videos
Login Sign up
Blog
Videos
Pricing
FR EN

amount

noun, verb — 6 senses

amount

noun

/əˈmaʊnt/

Etymology From Middle English amounten (“to mount up to, come up to, signify”), from Old French amonter (“to amount to”), from amont, amunt (“uphill, upward”), from the prepositional phrase a mont (“toward or to a mountain or heap”), from Latin ad montem, from ad (“to”) + montem, accusative of mons (“mountain”).

1

The total, aggregate or sum of material (not applicable to discrete numbers or units or items in standard English).

  • The amount of atmospheric pollution threatens a health crisis.
2

A quantity or volume.

  • Pour a small amount of water into the dish.
  • The dogs need different amounts of food.
1 more example
  • The use of algorithms in policing is one example of their increasing influence on our lives.[…]who, if anyone, is policing their use[?] Such concerns were sharpened further by the continuing revelations about how the US National Security Agency (NSA) has been using algorithms to help it interpret the colossal amounts of data it has collected from its covert dragnet of international telecommunications.2013 July 26, Leo Hickman, “How algorithms rule the world”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 7, archived from the original on 05 Mar 2025, page 26:
3

Nonstandard, Proscribed, Sometimes The number (the sum) of elements in a set.

  • The final amount of students who have participated to mobility for the period 1995-1999 is held to be around 460 000.2001, Gisella Gori, Towards an EU right to education, page 195:
Derived terms
amount of substance, paramount
Hyponyms
batch, bolus, notional amount, principal amount, serving

amount

verb

Etymology From Middle English amounten (“to mount up to, come up to, signify”), from Old French amonter (“to amount to”), from amont, amunt (“uphill, upward”), from the prepositional phrase a mont (“toward or to a mountain or heap”), from Latin ad montem, from ad (“to”) + montem, accusative of mons (“mountain”).

1

With to To total or evaluate.

  • The money in my pocket amounts to three dollars and change.
2

With to To be the tantamount to; to reach up to the level of.

  • He was a pretty good student, but never amounted to much professionally.
  • His response amounted to gross insubordination.
2 more examples
  • It was, however, J.R.R. Tolkien who pointed out the close relationship in language as well as spelling, almost amounting to identity, between the Corpus MS of the Ancrene Riwle (A) and the Bodley MS of the Katherine Group (B).1965, Arne Zettersten, Studies in the dialect and vocabulary of the Ancrene Riwle (Lund Studies in English; 31), Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, page 21:
  • "The breadth of this LPR system is spectacular and amounts to a warrantless search."2023 July 24, Chris Eberhart, “NY police used AI to track drivers on highways as attorney questions legality”, in Fox News, archived from the original on 28 Aug 2023:
3

Obsolete To go up; to ascend.

  • So up he rose, and thence amounted straight.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 54:
Related terms
extent, magnitude, measurement, number, quantity, size

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.

Learn more