Other forms: amounts, amounted, amounting
An amount is how much there is of something. A large amount, the amount of work, the full amount.
The rule worth learning is amount versus number: amount goes with uncountable nouns — an amount of water, of time, of money — and number goes with countable ones: a number of people, of chairs. Saying a large amount of people is a common error and a noticeable one. As a verb, amount to means to add up to, and it has a useful figurative sense: it amounts to a refusal, meaning that is what it really is whatever it is called.
1nounamountHow much there is of something.
“A surprising amount of it was still usable.”
2nounsumA sum of money.
“The full amount is due by the end of the month.”
3verbaddTo add up to something.
“It amounts to about six hundred a year.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
amount is a quantity.
Also accepted in games: quantity
Old French amonter meant to go up, from Latin ad montem, to the mountain. An amount is what something climbs to when you add it up, and the mountain is still visible inside the word.
Proto-Indo-European
*men-
Middle English
amounten
English, today
amount
Built from
From Middle English amounten. From Middle English amounten (“to mount up to, come up to, signify”), from Old French amonter (“to amount to”), from amont, amunt (“uphill, upward”), from the prepositional phrase a mont (“toward or to a mountain or heap”), from Latin ad montem, from ad (“to”) + montem, accusative of mons (“mountain”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA