amounts

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of amount.

   The recipe lists different amounts of sugar and flour.

   Small amounts of rain fell across the region overnight.

   Note

   The plural that counts quantities, not things: amounts of sugar, flour or rain, each one a measure of something with no natural units. For countable items the standard choice is numbers, as in numbers of guests rather than amounts of guests. Using amount for a count of separate items is treated as nonstandard and is widely criticized. Keep amounts for what you would weigh, pour or total.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of amount.

   Her total debt amounts to more than a year's salary.

   The repair bill amounts to nearly three hundred dollars.

   Note

   This form almost never stands alone. It takes to, as in the bill amounts to three hundred dollars. The same construction also works figuratively: his silence amounts to a confession, where something reaches the level of another thing rather than adding up to a sum. An older meaning, to go up or ascend, is now obsolete. The spelling is shared with the plural noun, but the verb always has a singular subject.

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