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From Late Latin quantum, noun use of neuter form of Latin quantus ("how much").

Full definition of quantum

(plural quanta)

(now chiefly South Asia) The total amount of something; quantity. from 17th c.

1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Folio Society 1973, p. 416:The reader will perhaps be curious to know the quantum of this present, but we cannot satisfy his curiosity.
2008, The Times of India, 21 May 2008, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Business/India_Business/Fuel_price_hike_put_off_over_quantum/articleshow/3087364.cms:The Congress's core ministerial panel on Friday gave its green signal to raising motor fuel prices but the quantum of increase emerged as a hitch.

1999, Joyce Crick, translating Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, Oxford 2008, p. 34:The dream of flying, according to StrÃ¼mpell, is the appropriate image used by the psyche to interpret the quantum of stimulus proceeding from the rise and fall of the lungs when the cutaneous sensation of the thorax has simultaneously sunk into unconsciousness.

(physics) The smallest possible, and therefore indivisible, unit of a given quantity or quantifiable phenomenon. from 20th c.

2002, David C Cassidy et al., Understanding Physics, Birkhauser 2002, p. 602:The quantum of light energy was later called a photon.

(math) A definite portion of a manifoldness, limited by a mark or by a boundary.
(obsolete) quantity; amount

2012-01, Michael Riordan, Tackling Infinity, Some of the most beautiful and thus appealing physical theories, including quantum electrodynamics and quantum gravity, have been dogged for decades by infinities that erupt when theorists try to prod their calculations into new domains. Getting rid of these nagging infinities has probably occupied far more effort than was spent in originating the theories.