amount

American  

[uh-maunt] / əˈmaʊnt /

noun

• amounts
  plural

1. the sum total of two or more quantities or sums; aggregate.

2. the sum of the principal and interest of a loan.

3. quantity; measure.

   a great amount of resistance.

4. the full effect, value, or significance.

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verb (used without object)

• amounts,
  present (3rd person singular)
• amounted,
  past participle,  past
• amounting
  present participle

1. to total; add (usually followed byto ).

   The repair bill amounts to $300.

2. to reach, extend, or be equal in number, quantity, effect, etc.; be equivalent (usually followed byto ).

   It is stated differently but amounts to the same thing.

3. to develop into; become (usually followed byto ).

   With his intelligence, he should amount to something when he grows up.

amount British  

/ əˈmaʊnt /

noun

1. extent; quantity; supply

2. the total of two or more quantities; sum

3. the full value, effect, or significance of something

4. a principal sum plus the interest on it, as in a loan

---

verb

1. to be equal or add up in effect, meaning, or quantity

Usage

The use of a plural noun after amount of (an amount of bananas; the amount of refugees ) should be avoided: a quantity of bananas; the number of refugees

Commonly Confused

The traditional distinction between amount and number is that amount is used with mass or uncountable nouns ( the amount of paperwork; the amount of energy ) and number with countable nouns ( a number of songs; a number of days ). Although objected to, the use of amount instead of number with countable nouns occurs in both speech and writing, especially when the noun can be considered as a unit or group ( the amount of people present; the amount of weapons ) or when it refers to money ( the amount of dollars paid; the amount of pennies in the till ).

Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• amounts
  plural

Participles

• amounting
  present
• amounted
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• amount
  simple
• amounts
  simple
• have amounted
  perfect
• has amounted
  perfect
• am amounting
  progressive
• are amounting
  progressive
• is amounting
  progressive
• have been amounting
  perfect progressive
• has been amounting
  perfect progressive

Past

• amounted
  simple
• had amounted
  perfect
• was amounting
  progressive
• were amounting
  progressive
• had been amounting
  perfect progressive

Future

• will amount
  simple
• will have amounted
  perfect
• will be amounting
  progressive
• will have been amounting
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of amount

First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English verb amounten, amunten, from Anglo-French amo(u)nter, amunter, Old French amonter literally, “to go up, ascend,” probably a- + monter; noun use of verb from early 18th century; see a- ⁵, mount ¹

Explanation

An amount is a number, or quantity, of something. If you're surprised by the amount of work you have to do at your new job, you probably didn't expect such a long list of tasks. You might complain about the amount of time it takes for the shoes you bought to arrive: amount here means the number of days before you can wear them. Amount is also a verb, meaning "add up to," like when you hope the tips you earn will amount to more than minimum wage. This meaning came before the noun amount, from the now obsolete definition, "to mount a horse," from the Old French amonter, "upward."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

amount amounts amounted amounting

Severing military bases from the civilian power grid would free up an enormous amount of capacity that utilities like Georgia Power are currently providing to the military.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

Climate change threatens to shrink the amount of water they can reliably deliver over the next 20 years, state officials have warned.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2026

A person can leave an unlimited amount to their spouse after their death.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 9, 2026

Tessa Chapman, a photographer based in south Somerset, said parents removing watermarks were costing her a "huge amount of money".

From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2026

“I suppose anyone who scratches lions under the chin is entitled to a certain amount of confidence. I better go down to the Shack and get cleaned up before dinner.”

From "Storm Runners" by Roland Smith

You have enough to keep you going, but you don’t have endless amounts to supplement two adults who see you as the next best thing to Western Union.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 8, 2026

"They pretended to be big players in the PPE market. They pretended to have PPE for sale and to be able to buy vast amounts of it," Bisgrove added.

From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026

The research shows how major seasonal changes, including melting snow, moving ocean water, and dense winter air, redistribute enormous amounts of mass across Earth's surface.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 7, 2026

The lawsuit says all of this violates the city and state false-claims law and amounts to racketeering.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026

Both were sources of small amounts of food.

From "The Boy on the Wooden Box" by Leon Leyson

He posted on X, external thanking Portugal's Minister of Justice, Rita Alarcao Judice and saying the commission's initial decision had clearly violated the law and amounted to a "manifest abuse of power".

From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2026

But in Andriesz's view that amounted to little more than a regulatory "slap on the wrist" and made it harder to make a claim for whistleblower retaliation against BGC at tribunal.

From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026

That work amounted to a résumé that would rival those inventors and innovators of yore.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 4, 2026

Damian wasn’t convinced that amounted to an economic injury.

From Salon ● Sep. 19, 2026

That amounted to about thirty agents for each state.

From "1919 The Year That Changed America" by Martin W. Sandler

Last week an independent legal panel delivered a long-anticipated verdict, finding the club guilty on 114 counts of systematic financial fraud, amounting to more than a billion dollars in fake revenues and sham commercial sponsorships.

From Salon ● Oct. 4, 2026

The plaintiffs say they have suffered losses amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars from wildfires, flooding and other weather extremes and are seeking compensation.

From Barron's ● Oct. 2, 2026

In 2024, the same team used AI to recover 15 complete columns from a scroll owned by the Institut de France, amounting to less than one tenth of the entire document.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 26, 2026

Under the agreement, Petronas’s U.K. subsidiary, Petco Trading, will deliver six LNG cargoes annually, amounting to around 0.6 billion cubic meters a year over five years from 2027.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 14, 2026

On a $2 billion trade—a trade that would, in the end, have transferred a $2 billion loss from Merrill Lynch to Morgan Stanley—the two traders were arguing over interest payments amounting to $800,000 a year.

From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis

Related Words

• budget
• cost
• damage
• expense
• extent
• lot
• outlay
• output
• price tag
• product
• sum