total
Americanadjective
-
constituting or comprising the whole; entire; whole.
the total expenditure.
- Synonyms:
- complete
-
of or relating to the whole of something.
the total effect of a play.
-
complete in extent or degree; absolute; unqualified; utter.
a total failure.
-
involving all aspects, elements, participants, resources, etc.; unqualified; all-out.
total war.
noun
-
totals
plural
verb (used with object)
-
totals,
present (3rd person singular)
-
totaled,
past participle, past
-
totalled,
past participle, past (especially British)
-
totaling,
present participle
-
totalling
present participle (especially British)
-
to bring to a total; add up.
-
to reach a total of; amount to.
-
Slang. to wreck or demolish completely.
He totaled his new car in the accident.
verb (used without object)
-
totals,
present (3rd person singular)
-
totaled,
past participle, past
-
totalled,
past participle, past (especially British)
-
totaling,
present participle
-
totalling
present participle (especially British)
noun
adjective
-
complete; absolute
the evening was a total failure
a total eclipse
-
(prenominal) being or related to a total
the total number of passengers
verb
-
to amount
to total six pounds
-
(tr) to add up
to total a list of prices
-
slang (tr) to kill or badly injure (someone)
-
(tr) to damage (a vehicle) beyond repair
Usage
What does total mean? Total describes the wholeness or entirety of something, like the total amount of cake you ate last night. If you ate the total cake, you ate the entire cake (and might have felt sick afterward!). Total describes the breadth of something either physically or conceptually. For example, your total order describes all the items in your purchase. While if you’re a total success, you are completely successful. A total is the complete amount or sum. The total on your restaurant bill is the entire amount of money you owe for your meal. A total can also be the entirety of something. The total of your book collection would be all the books you own, and the total of your sports equipment is all the equipment you own. Finally, to total is to add up (to total your bill) or to reach an amount, as in The bill totalled up to $56. 75. Example: The total on the bill is higher than I expected because I forgot about sales tax.
Synonym Usage
See whole.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
-
supertotalnoun
-
retotalverb (used with object)
-
quasi-totaladjective
-
untotaledadjective
-
untotalledadjective
-
quasi-totallyadverb
-
totallyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
totalsimple
-
totalssimple
-
have totaledperfect
-
have totalledperfect
-
has totaledperfect
-
has totalledperfect
-
am totalingprogressive
-
am totallingprogressive
-
are totalingprogressive
-
are totallingprogressive
-
is totalingprogressive
-
is totallingprogressive
-
have been totalingperfect progressive
-
have been totallingperfect progressive
-
has been totalingperfect progressive
-
has been totallingperfect progressive
Past
-
totaledsimple
-
totalledsimple
-
had totaledperfect
-
had totalledperfect
-
was totalingprogressive
-
was totallingprogressive
-
were totalingprogressive
-
were totallingprogressive
-
had been totalingperfect progressive
-
had been totallingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of total
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English (adjective), from Medieval Latin tōtālis , equivalent to Latin tōt(us) “entire” + -ālis -al 1
Explanation
There are many meanings of total, but they all have something to do with completeness. A total is a whole or complete amount, and "to total" is to add numbers or to destroy something. In math, you total numbers by adding them: the result is the total. If you add 8 and 8, the total is 16. If a car is totaled in an accident, it has been completely destroyed. A total defeat is a complete and utter defeat with no chance of recovering. The total resources of a company are all its resources, everything it has.
Vocabulary lists containing total
Eclipse Vocabulary
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Measurement and Data, List 1
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Operations and Algebraic Thinking
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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:
He didn’t give up 504 yards of total offense to the Ducks.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 27, 2026
Over the weekend, the encore presentation of the Walt Disney film took in $26 million in North America, for a global total of $86 million, according to estimates by Exhibitor Relations, a tracking firm.
From Barron's ● Sep. 27, 2026
Leon Popek, an archaeologist with Poland’s Institute of National Memory that oversees the digs, said only 850 Polish victims have been found so far—perhaps 1% of the total killed.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 27, 2026
DNA-P made up only a small share of the total organic phosphorus in the soils studied.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 27, 2026
“I got you some clothes so you don’t look like a total maniac, though I’m not sure it’ll help much if you go around telling people you’re maxing and relaxing,” Gibby said.
From "The First State of Being" by Erin Entrada Kelly
CPL shared the post on Instagram, where other patrons began volunteering their totals in the comments — a spontaneous little leaderboard for people whose competitive edge expresses itself through returning DVDs on time.
From Salon ● Sep. 6, 2026
Garreaud said precipitation totals reached levels "rarely seen in the otherwise extremely arid region."
From Science Daily ● Sep. 1, 2026
According to the Met Office, there is also a small chance of considerably higher totals, particularly over east-facing higher ground, where more than 75mm could fall within 12 hours.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
The totals are not definitive and could yet rise.
From Barron's ● Aug. 20, 2026
From a few incidents in which before and after totals are known with relative certainty, Dobyns calculated that in the first 130 years of contact about 95 percent of the people in the Americas died.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Average aid per student totaled over $40,000 that year.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 25, 2026
The Wine Institute, which represents California wineries, said in a report that U.S. wine exports totaled $805 million in 2025, down 35% from 2024.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 23, 2026
Assets under management for the four-year-old ETF totaled $1.9 billion as of Sept. 21, more than tripling from $640 million when MarketWatch spoke to Campbell in February.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 23, 2026
The watchdog's report also notes that equipment losses have totaled $3.7bn, with other $7.4bn in other expenditures.
From BBC ● Sep. 15, 2026
In fact, by the age of twenty, the elite performers had each totaled ten thousand hours of practice.
From "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell
In the 10 months preceding the war, Iran's trade with the UAE totalled $21 billion according to official Iranian figures.
From Barron's ● Aug. 20, 2026
Foreign arrival numbers into the country have broken records each year, and totalled 97 million in 2025.
From BBC ● Jun. 7, 2026
Sooryavanshi's individual prize money totalled more than £30,000.
From BBC ● Jun. 1, 2026
In contrast, Canadian-resident return trips from overseas countries by air totalled 1.5 million in March, up 4.9% on-year.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 13, 2026
Those in each square were then added up, and finally the numbers in each of the rows and in each of the columns were severally totalled.
From Finger Prints by Sir Francis Galton
Hedge funds held a record 7% of the Treasury market, totaling about $2 trillion, at the start of this year.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026
Through acquisitions of other tech firms, the company has assembled a portfolio of 17 owned properties totaling more than 2.2 million square feet, according to CoStar data.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 14, 2026
His state financial disclosure for 2001 listed assets totaling no more than $170,000, a ProPublica and Tribune analysis found.
From Salon ● Sep. 5, 2026
The medical-device maker also announced two separate investments totaling about $780 million, one supporting a heart-technology company and the other a surgical-robotics company.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 1, 2026
My mind did the totaling and, counting the baby, there were six of them!
From "Elijah of Buxton" by Christopher Paul Curtis
Willian joined Chelsea from Anzhi Makhachkala in 2013, with the investigation finding that transfer fee payments totalling £19.2m were made to two unregistered entities in connection with his move and that of Samuel Eto'o.
From BBC ● Sep. 10, 2026
More than 60% — totalling an estimated 3,633 homeless people — live within a mile of downtown venues and face possible expulsion, the report said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 4, 2026
Before the war, trade between Kuwait and Iran was robust, totalling roughly $300 million in 2024, according to Kuwaiti media citing the two countries' joint chamber of commerce.
From Barron's ● Sep. 3, 2026
A socio-economic taskforce set up four years ago put forward regeneration proposals totalling £70m - and some money has been forthcoming.
From BBC ● Aug. 24, 2026
At the death of Augustus the number of the legions was twenty-five; under Vespasian it was thirty; and Severus increased it to thirty-three, totalling over 180,000 men.
From A History of Rome to 565 A. D. by Arthur Edward Romilly Boak
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.
