Amounts

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /əˈmaʊnts/

Definitions

1. The total sums or quantities of items or resources that can be quantified
2. Various total figures representing the quantities of different entities that are capable of measurement
3. The measured totals or quantities of particular objects or substances

Etymology: The sum you add up is, etymologically, a mountain. "Amount" comes from Old French "amonter," meaning "to mount up to" or "to come up to," a verb built from the phrase "a mont," literally "toward a mountain" or "uphill." That phrase descends from Latin "ad montem," with "ad" meaning "to" and "montem" meaning "mountain." Medieval speakers pictured a total as something you climbed to, and the image of a rising slope became the image of a figure reaching a certain height. Middle English took this over as "amounten," meaning to rise up to a particular total or to signify something, and the noun grew out of that verb. The sense of a quantity of money or goods came naturally from the idea of a pile reaching a level. "Amounts" is simply the plural of "amount," used for several separate totals or quantities of particular things or substances, such as the amounts of ingredients in a recipe.

Synonyms: quantities, sums, totals, counts, values

Antonyms: deficits, shortages, lack, loss, decrease