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:
The pair selected a total of 14 tracks.
From BBC ● Nov. 14, 2026
The renamed strategy ranks very high for total return performance against other investment newsletters tracked by Mark Hulbert, especially the 30-year and 1-year returns, which you can see here.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 13, 2026
In the complete laser simulation examined by the researchers, this calculation alone accounts for approximately 95 percent of the total processing time.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 13, 2026
The additional releases would bring the total volume of emergency stocks released since March to around 420 million barrels, exceeding the 400 million barrels initially committed by IEA countries.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 13, 2026
“They’re total strangers to me now! How could they not tell me?”
From "Found" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Industry totals can also obscure changes in particular jobs, Mui noted.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 7, 2026
Subtracting Apple’s nine-month figures through June from its annual totals shows September-quarter repurchases rose 20.7% to $24.3 billion.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 4, 2026
But annual reports record far lower totals, among the opaque details activists wanted clarified.
From Barron's ● Oct. 30, 2026
Rainfall amounts are expected to be relatively uniform throughout Los Angeles County, with mountain and foothill communities like La Cañada and Azusa getting totals toward the upper end of the range, he said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 29, 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
That will add to a cash pile that totaled nearly $100 billion in the company’s last reported quarter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 12, 2026
Since 2007, his pay has totaled $2.4 billion, including salaries, bonuses and other compensation, according to Courtney Yu, the director of research for Equilar, a research firm that gathers data on executives and boards.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 12, 2026
His company had for decades sold a water-bottle-sized air vent to oil refineries and other customers in batches that usually totaled dozens at a time.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 10, 2026
The German reinsurer said large losses in its property-and-casualty segment totaled $1.47 billion in the first nine months of the year, coming in below its budgeted expectation.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 9, 2026
Deaths from all types of malignancies of blood and lymph totaled 25,400, increasing sharply from the 16,690 figure of 1950.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
An undercover reporter recorded two senior Reform aides apparently suggesting a way around electoral law to secure foreign party donations, one of which would have totalled £500,000.
From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2026
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
Hull, who hit 13 of 14 fairways last Friday, totalled 63 putts in the first two rounds.
From BBC ● Jun. 8, 2026
The deficit during the first six months of this fiscal year totalled $1.2 trillion, which is $139 billion less than the same period last year.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 9, 2026
To Belgium her exports totalled $37,258,225, and her imports $20,370,530.
From The Argentine Republic by Anonymous
NRG Energy on Monday said it has agreed to sell six natural-gas fired generation assets totaling 4.9 gigawatts to LS Power for $4 billion in cash.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 9, 2026
The GEO Group, a Florida-based private prison corporation, announced Monday that it had sold the detention facilities, including the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, totaling 2,644 Beds.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 9, 2026
Since you have traditional IRAs totaling $950,000 that are subject to RMDs, they may have reasoned that converting now will reduce taxes on future distributions.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 2, 2026
Lula pulled around 4.4 million more votes than his rival, totaling over 64.2 million on his seventh go at the presidency -- the highest proportion ever counted in Brazil.
From Barron's ● Oct. 26, 2026
My brain is humming like a cash register, totaling it up, making change.
From "The Young Man and the Sea" by Rodman Philbrick
Ofgem, the energy market regulator, says data centre developers are seeking connections totalling 72 gigawatts.
From BBC ● Nov. 3, 2026
After bumper second-quarter profits both SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics announced buybacks totalling $40 billion that were completed earlier than expected in mid-October.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 15, 2026
NHS maternity staff who were exposed to excessive levels of nitrous oxide have received "landmark" payouts totalling £735,000, a union said.
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2026
The port’s record September — totalling 1,042,652 containers — also represents the most volume ever moved through any port in the Western Hemisphere.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2026
Early in 1899 I received two orders, large in their way, totalling some five million rounds, for the .303 magazine rifle, from Sydney and Melbourne.
From The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon by J. M. (Joseph Maria) Gordon
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