quantity

American  

[kwon-ti-tee] / ˈkwɒn tɪ ti /

noun

• quantities
  plural

1. a particular or indefinite amount of anything.

   a small quantity of milk;

   the ocean's vast quantity of fish.

2. an exact or specified amount or measure.

   Mix the ingredients in the quantities called for.

3. a considerable or great amount.

   to extract ore in quantity.

4. Mathematics.

   1. the property of magnitude involving comparability with other magnitudes.

   2. something having magnitude, or size, extent, amount, or the like.

   3. magnitude, size, volume, area, or length.

5. Music. the length or duration of a note.

6. Logic. the character of a proposition as singular, universal, particular, or mixed, according to the presence or absence of certain kinds of quantifiers.

7. that amount, degree, etc., in terms of which another is greater or lesser.

8. Prosody, Phonetics. the relative duration or length of a sound or a syllable, with respect to the time spent in pronouncing it; length.

9. Law. the nature of an estate as affected by its duration in time.

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quantity British  

/ ˈkwɒntɪtɪ /

noun

1. 1. a specified or definite amount, weight, number, etc

   2. ( as modifier )

      a quantity estimate

2. the aspect or property of anything that can be measured, weighed, counted, etc

3. a large or considerable amount

4. maths an entity having a magnitude that may be denoted by a numerical expression

5. physics a specified magnitude or amount; the product of a number and a unit

6. logic the characteristic of a proposition dependent on whether it is a universal or particular statement, considering all or only part of a class

7. prosody the relative duration of a syllable or the vowel in it

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quantity Scientific  

/ kwŏn′tĭ-tē /

1. Something, such as a number or symbol that represents a number, on which a mathematical operation is performed.

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quantity Idioms  

1. see unknown quantity.

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Usage

The use of a plural noun after quantity of as in a large quantity of bananas was formerly considered incorrect, but is now acceptable

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• quantities
  plural

Etymology

Origin of quantity

First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English quantite, from Old French, from Latin quantitās, from quant(us) “how much” + -itās -ity

Explanation

Quantity tells you “how much.” If you're concerned with quantity not quality, it's more important how many you have than how good they are. If you get confused about quantity vs. quality, remember that quant is close to count. In Latin, quantus means “how great” or “how much.” When you count how many oranges are in a bowl, you know the quantity. When you count the grains of sand in a desert, you're counting a very large quantity . . . and you need a new hobby.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

quantity quantities

With this large quantity of collaborations in his hands, he made it a priority to spotlight these tracks on “Dosis.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 21, 2026

The plaintiffs received “edible Reese’s Peanut Butter products of the type and quantity advertised,” the judge wrote, finding that their complaint amounted to “subjective disappointment” rather than a concrete financial loss.

From Salon ● Sep. 19, 2026

The adult size of many insects is fixed during their development, depending on the quality and quantity of food they receive as larvae.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 11, 2026

When it comes to candy, she tells us, William “frankly upheld the superiority of quantity over quality.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 10, 2026

To get to it, to redeem it, Franny had to shuffle across the floor through a quantity of newspapers and sidestep an empty paint bucket.

From "Franny and Zooey" by J. D. Salinger

More than 1,400 people are confirmed to have died after a glacial collapse in the Himalayas sent vast quantities of water and debris careering down the Trishuli River valley, sweeping away settlements.

From BBC ● Sep. 27, 2026

Training and running frontier-level AI models requires vast quantities of computing power, but so does deploying AI across an economy that scales to millions of people, he noted.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 26, 2026

Physicists also use little g, but the two quantities describe very different things.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 20, 2026

Iran imports large quantities of its wheat, corn and cooking oil from Russia, according to commodities data provider Kpler and Iranian trading websites.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026

New Guinea is covered with young fertile soil, as a consequence of volcanic activity, glaciers repeatedly advancing and retreating and scouring the highlands, and mountain streams carrying huge quantities of silt to the lowlands.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

Related Words

• abundance
• batch
• bulk
• capacity
• length
• load
• pile
• portion
• quota
• size
• sum
• variety
• volume