Amount

Pronunciation

• enPR: É™.mount', IPA: /əˈmaÊŠnt/
• Rhymes: -aÊŠnt

Origin

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").

Full definition of amount

Noun

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.
• 2013-07-26, Leo Hickman, How algorithms rule the world, 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.
3. (nonstandard, sometimes proscribed) The number (the sum) of elements in a set.
• 2001, Gisella Gori, Towards an EU right to education, page 195:The final amount of students who have participated to mobility for the period 1995-1999 is held to be around 460 000.

Derived terms

• principal amount
• notional amount

Verb

1. (intransitive, followed by to) To total or evaluate.It amounts to three dollars and change.
2. (intransitive, followed by to) To be the same as or equivalent to.He was a pretty good student, but never amounted to much professionally.His response amounted to gross insubordination
3. (obsolete, intransitive) To go up; to ascend.
• SpenserSo up he rose, and thence amounted straight.

Derived terms

• amount to

Anagrams

• mantou
• outman