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 world used about 29 million metric tons of copper and 1.9 billion metric tons of steel in 2025.
From Barron's • May 18, 2026
Macquarie notes Evolution also produces copper, volumes of which are anticipated to be around 80,000 metric tons in FY27.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 18, 2026
The Saudi plans will drive the 2034 event’s pollution up to 8.6 million tons of CO2, based on conservative estimates.
From Los Angeles Times • May 18, 2026
The U.S. itself produces 53 million tons of fertilizer.
From Salon • May 15, 2026
Millions of tons of rock and ice and volcanic debris crashed down the mountain.
From "I Survived the Eruption of Mount St. Helens, 1980" by Lauren Tarshis
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.
