amount

Meanings

1. A quantity of something, especially one that can be measured.
2. The total reached by adding things up.

Example sentences

• "A large amount of snow fell during the night."

  Level A2, Meaning 1

• "Add a small amount of salt to the soup."

  Level A2, Meaning 1

• "She spent a huge amount of time on the project."

  Level B1, Meaning 1

• "The total amount comes to fifty dollars."

  Level B1, Meaning 2

Synonyms and antonyms

Look-alikes and common mistakes

• number : Use number for things you can count one by one. Use amount for things you measure, such as water or time.
• quantity : Quantity is the more formal word for how much of something there is.

Word family and forms

Forms: amounts

Word partners

Words and phrases that often go with "amount".

• a large amount
• a small amount
• the amount of
• a fair amount
• a huge amount of time
• an amount of money

Idioms and phrases

no amount of

However much of something, it would not be enough.

"No amount of money could make him change his mind."

Origin

Amount comes from the Middle English verb amounten, which meant to go up to or to add up to, from Old French amonter. The French verb is built from a mont, toward the hill or upward, so to amount was to go up. The noun use grew from the verb in the 1500s.

Checked against: Wiktionary, the free dictionary, Dictionary.com.

How to remember it

Amount has mount inside it. An amount is how high something has mounted up.

Test yourself

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