quantify
Americanverb (used with object)
-
quantifies,
present (3rd person singular)
-
quantified,
past participle, past
-
quantifying
present participle
-
to determine, indicate, or express the quantity of.
-
Logic. to make explicit the quantity of (a proposition).
-
to give quantity to (something regarded as having only quality).
verb
-
to discover or express the quantity of
-
logic to specify the quantity of (a term) by using a quantifier, such as all, some, or no
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
quantifysimple
-
quantifiessimple
-
have quantifiedperfect
-
has quantifiedperfect
-
am quantifyingprogressive
-
are quantifyingprogressive
-
is quantifyingprogressive
-
have been quantifyingperfect progressive
-
has been quantifyingperfect progressive
Past
-
quantifiedsimple
-
had quantifiedperfect
-
was quantifyingprogressive
-
were quantifyingprogressive
-
had been quantifyingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of quantify
First recorded in 1830–40; from Medieval Latin quantificāre, equivalent to Latin quant(us) “how much” + -ificāre -ify
Compare meaning
How does quantify compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
When you quantify something, you're putting it in numbers. If you're asked to quantify the fingers on your hand, you better say five. If you like math, this word is for you: quantifying is counting or expressing something in numbers. Oddly enough quantify often comes into play when people are trying to count things that can't really be counted. When a doctor asks you to rate your pain on a scale of 1 to 10, he's asking you to quantify for your pain. Michael Jordan won 6 NBA championships, but you can't quantify what made him great: his drive and determination.
Vocabulary lists containing quantify
This Week In Culture: September 5–11, 2020
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
This Week In Culture: Current Events Vocab for October 31–November 6, 2020
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
"Simon's Saga," Vocabulary from Episode 35
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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:
There are very few studies done on biotherapies, and what is out there is primarily inconclusive or acknowledging the results as too complex to quantify.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2026
Some have fought lawmakers’ efforts to contain or even quantify the costs to taxpayers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026
“There is no hard information Mr. Jassy or anybody else has to quantify a market that didn’t even exist three years ago,” Luria said.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 17, 2026
In terms of fielding performance by the team, it is hard to quantify other than via the percentage of dropped catches - though Stokes' teams famously hunted down even lost causes to the boundary.
From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2026
It bothers Mira that she cannot quantify this scientifically, that she cannot prove it one way or another.
From "The School for Whatnots" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
It’s a topic that has certainly been discussed, but the paper quantifies that shift, finding nonaligned countries have moved nearly one-third of total reserve portfolios away from foreign-currency claims.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 31, 2026
"We used a simple and very low-cost technique that quantifies the 'darkness' of fossil pollen and spores, a so-called Palynomorph Darkness Index."
From Science Daily ● Jul. 22, 2026
“She quantifies her work to the voters as her primary reelection strategy,” Dutson said.
From Slate ● Jun. 16, 2026
I noticed that many of your previous papers cover the gray vireo, which your new study quantifies as a “drab,” understudied bird.
From Salon ● Apr. 23, 2025
Writing is often clearer and more elegant when a writer pushes an only or a not next to the thing that it quantifies.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
She described the figures as "incredibly concerning", with the true impact of artificial intelligence on the workplace yet to be quantified.
From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2026
The small acts of resistance that you quantified stuck out to me.
From Slate ● Jun. 17, 2026
For example, the Goldman note highlighted that 54% of companies discussed AI productivity on their first-quarter earnings calls, but only 11% quantified the benefits, while even fewer, just 2%, quantified the impact on earnings.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 11, 2026
GE quantified those fears on April 21 when it reported better-than-expected earnings and left its 2026 earnings guidance unchanged, which calls for about 15% earnings growth.
From Barron's ● May 7, 2026
The angle of his nose is quantified with a wooden protractor.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
To call his latest film a contemporary masterwork would be true, but there’s also no quantifying the magic McElwee conjures here, no comparing it to anything else.
From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2026
The surest sign of market dislocation is when banks start quantifying their exposure to a given issue.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 24, 2026
By quantifying that threshold, ALFA-K turns genome doubling from a descriptive observation into a predictable evolutionary event.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 26, 2026
One particular challenge in these cases is quantifying compensation for people who received no mental-health treatment at all, said lawyer Steve Cohen, who represents several plaintiffs.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 26, 2025
Donders’s writing at the time shows an ebullient quality, such as when he describes the challenges of quantifying mental processing.
From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel
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.
