ample
Americanadjective
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fully sufficient or more than adequate for the purpose or needs; plentiful; enough: ample time to finish.
an ample supply of water;
ample time to finish.
-
of sufficient or abundant measure; liberal; copious.
an ample reward.
-
of adequate or more than adequate extent, size, or amount; large; spacious; roomy.
ample storage space.
adjective
-
more than sufficient; abundant
an ample helping
-
large in size, extent, or amount
of ample proportions
Usage
What does ample mean? Ample means enough—sufficient or adequate. It can also mean more than enough—plentiful or abundant. It is often used in the context of things like time, room, space, supplies, or resources (such as food and money) to indicate that there is enough or more than enough of what is needed. Sometimes, ample means large in size, extent, or amount, as in It was an ample tract of land. Ample can be used in front of a noun, as in We have ample funds to cover the purchase, or elsewhere in the sentence, as in The payment was ample. The adverb form of ample is amply, meaning sufficiently or abundantly, as in He gave amply to charity. Example: There was no one else there, so there was ample space to spread out.
Synonym Usage
See plentiful. Ample, liberal, copious, profuse describe degrees of abundant provision. Ample implies a plentiful provision: to give ample praise. Liberal implies provision from a generous supply (more than ample but less than copious ): Liberal amounts of food were distributed to people who needed it. Copious implies an apparently inexhaustible and lavish abundance: a copious flow of tears. Profuse implies a still more unrestrained abundance of provision or flow: profuse in his apologies.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of ample
First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin amplus “wide, large”
Explanation
Ample describes an abundance of something. An ample supply of apple muffins at the bake sale is a good thing, as is ample legroom in your new van — but if the vet notices your dog's ample waistline, you might have to put Fido on a diet. Like amplify (crank up the volume), ample is from the Latin word amplus, meaning "large or spacious." Ample can be enough or even too much of something. It's great when there's ample parking or ample snacks for a hike, and we'd all be happy if we had ample time and money. But there are things that some people don't want more of — if your principal has ample evidence that you started the food fight in the cafeteria, you're probably going to end up in detention.
Vocabulary lists containing ample
100 SAT Words Beginning with "A"
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30 GRE Words Beginning with "A"
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Unit 1: Telling Details
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Many still aspire to be homeowners, but “owning a home, on its own, says little about a family’s broader financial picture,” they wrote, and having ample investable assets is necessary for security.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 22, 2026
Those efforts, along with ample water from Northern California, allowed the board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California last week to accept $65 million from the U.S.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
ING’s economics team noted that policymakers have sought to maintain ample liquidity and sees a solid chance of a rate cut within the quarter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026
Winter and spring rains spurred abundant vegetation that later dried out in successive heat waves, leaving ample fuel for wildfires, officials said.
From Barron's ● Jul. 12, 2026
With a demand like that, and an ample supply, it was hard not to make money.
From "The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates" by Wes Moore
With adapters no longer inhibited or intimidated, works totalling over 1,000 pages are tamed by gleefully drastic slashing and/or exploiting the ampler air-time available in TV series.
From The Guardian ● May 11, 2013
Perhaps as their elders become a bit more forgiving of excess pounds and ampler figures, American youngsters will pick up the cue.
From Time Magazine Archive
The main house was rebuilt in ampler proportions, two houses for the sons, a house for Judge Medina's mother, a remodeled library, a boathouse and numerous outbuildings.
From Time Magazine Archive
Their collection this year tends to be ampler as Bardot demonstrated by modeling one of her striped angora sweater-tunics and gold lame thigh boots.
From Time Magazine Archive
This imposing pageant of the Finals was apt to awaken in the ambitious, first-year girl, a sense of her intellectual poverty, and to inspire noble resolution for ampler education.
From Charles Lewis Cocke Founder of Hollins College by Smith, William Robert Lee
Just across Fifth Avenue from Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum, the U.S.'s amplest conservatory of time-tested art, is a hothouse of the newest and least tested.
From Time Magazine Archive
"These States are the amplest poem, Here is not merely a nation but a teeming Nation of nations."
From Time Magazine Archive
The amplest testimony to the practical wisdom of the suggestions that she made was borne by those Anglo-Indians who were qualified to judge.
From Harriet Martineau by Miller, Florence Fenwick
The Romans exercised this toleration, in the amplest manner.
From The Great Apostasy Considered in the Light of Scriptural and Secular History by Talmage, James Edward
Undaunted courage, invincible optimism were his in amplest measure; and this attitude of mind could not fail to react upon his comrades in arms.
From Mrs. Fitz by Snaith, J. C.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
