quantify
Americanverb (used with object)
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quantifies,
present (3rd person singular)
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quantified,
past participle, past
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quantifying
present participle
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to determine, indicate, or express the quantity of.
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Logic. to make explicit the quantity of (a proposition).
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to give quantity to (something regarded as having only quality).
verb
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to discover or express the quantity of
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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
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quantifysimple
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quantifiessimple
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have quantifiedperfect
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has quantifiedperfect
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am quantifyingprogressive
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are quantifyingprogressive
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is quantifyingprogressive
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have been quantifyingperfect progressive
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has been quantifyingperfect progressive
Past
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quantifiedsimple
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had quantifiedperfect
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was quantifyingprogressive
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were quantifyingprogressive
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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
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This Week In Culture: Current Events Vocab for October 31–November 6, 2020
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"Simon's Saga," Vocabulary from Episode 35
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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:
While there isn’t any data to quantify its frequency, as Walsh pointed out, if a phone call does happen, it’s becoming increasingly more common to text before you call.
From Salon ● Sep. 30, 2026
And in the bargain I’ve squared a longstanding account, which pays psychic benefits hard to quantify.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026
Being able to quantify the lifelong impact of student debt could have an impact on how Americans think about the “return on investment” of borrowing for higher education.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 15, 2026
"Volcanoes work in a similar way, and my lab is trying to quantify these processes."
From Science Daily ● Sep. 14, 2026
"Don't you quantify us? Break us into parts? Tabulate what features are more beautiful than others?"
From "The Belles" by Dhonielle Clayton
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
“She quantifies her work to the voters as her primary reelection strategy,” Dutson said.
From Slate ● Jun. 16, 2026
My research group's latest work on supply chain disruptions and the effects of various transportation disruptions, including delays, quantifies the impact on the quality of fresh produce.
From Salon ● Oct. 2, 2024
As hard as Glasnow throws, his fastball plays up because of his way-above-average extension, which quantifies how much closer a pitcher’s release point is to home plate.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 27, 2024
Likewise, the logician would argue, You only live once should be rewritten as You live only once, with only next to the thing it quantifies, once.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
The findings, published in Integrative Organismal Biology, provide the first quantified evidence that free swimming sharks can detect and orient away from sounds in the acoustic far field.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 30, 2026
How much would actually have been paid back to Fifa as an "annual license payment" referred to in a flow diagram in the charts, but not quantified?
From BBC ● Aug. 1, 2026
By measuring the chemistry of rivers draining the mines, they quantified the extent of acid mine drainage and how much of the water was neutralized through mineral reactions that produce carbon dioxide.
From Barron's ● Jul. 22, 2026
Even the qualitative factors are quantified and fed to the hiring algorithms.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 11, 2026
But the bottled oxygen conferred other benefits that weren’t so easily quantified.
From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer
“Q2 results showed a small and statistically insignificant difference in earnings growth between the companies quantifying AI productivity gains this quarter and other S&P 500 companies,” Goldman says.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 17, 2026
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 253-page report examines the purported scientific advances in quantifying the extent to which CO2 emissions contribute to natural disasters and extreme weather.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 19, 2026
"We have been very interested in quantifying the size of the problem, because what you cannot measure, you cannot manage," Ashok Gadgil, co-author of the research paper, told AFP.
From Barron's ● Jun. 26, 2026
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.
