Quantify

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /ˈkwɒn.tɪˌfaɪ/

Definitions

1. To express or measure something in numerical terms or as a specific amount
2. To express or measure the extent, amount, or degree of something by assigning it numerical values or specific measurements
3. To determine or state the amount or size of something using numbers

Etymology: Sir William Hamilton, the Scottish philosopher, is the person behind "quantify," and he coined it for a very specific job: sorting logical propositions. In his lectures on logic, he needed a way to say that a statement applied to all, some, or a single member of a class, and he built the new verb from Latin "quantus," meaning "how much" or "how great." The Latin "-ficare" ending, from "facere" ("to make"), turns it into "to make into a quantity." The word's first appearance in English was therefore a technical one, and it stayed close to its logical origins for some time before spreading into ordinary measurement. Its Latin ancestor, "quantificare," was itself a medieval coinage, which means the English verb has a direct line to a scholastic vocabulary rather than to classical Roman speech.

Synonyms: measure, calculate, assess, evaluate, determine

Antonyms: qualify, ignore, overlook, disregard, neglect