tons
Britishplural noun
adverb
Explanation
If you have tons of something, you have an enormous amount of it, like when you buy tons of ice cream for your birthday party. The informal tons is perfect for exaggerating, making a large quantity sound even bigger. You might say, "I have tons of friends at my new school" or "Your library is tiny — my library has tons more books!" It's a way to play up size or amount while still being vague. Tons comes from ton, which is often used colloquially ("I ate a ton of pasta"), but is also a precise unit for measuring weight.
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.
The potential for the Mount Storm facility is nonetheless rather limited: it can produce about four tons of rare earth oxides per year, and about 45 percent of that is "heavy" rare earths, Lin said.
From Barron's ● Aug. 22, 2026
In 1850, we are told, the Rhine was home to more than 300,000 tons of salmon; by 1950 “there were none left.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026
The Indonesian Air Force said it was bringing 13 tons of emergency aid airlifted in two Hercules transport planes and a Boeing.
From Barron's ● Aug. 17, 2026
The miner said it now expects full year copper production between 625,000 to 655,000 metric tons after production at its Los Pelambres mine north of Santiago was temporarily stopped due heavy rain and power outages.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
I had a Nintendo and uncles and tons of store-bought snacks.
From "Everything Sad Is Untrue" by Daniel Nayeri
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.
