Quantities

How to spell quantities

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce quantities

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does quantities mean?

1. nounAmounts or measurable portions of something, especially when counted or compared.

Quantities in a sentence

• The warehouse stores large quantities of bottled water for emergencies.

• The recipe scales easily for bigger quantities when she cooks for the whole office.

Where does quantities come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin quantus, an adjective meaning 'how much' or 'how great', which was turned into the noun quantitas, literally 'the quality of how much there is', that is, an amount or measurable size. The word travelled into English through Old French quantite during the 1300s, when it described a measurable portion of something. From the start it carried the idea of measurement, which is why it now sits at the heart of mathematics, science, and commerce alike. The same quantus root survives in relatives such as 'quantum' and 'quantify', and recognising the buried Latin quant- is a useful anchor for the spelling. The plural simply follows the regular English rule of turning a final -y into -ies, so 'quantity' becomes 'quantities'.

How the word is built

• quant- (from Latin quantus: how much, how great)
• -ity (noun-forming suffix)
• -es (plural, with y changed to i)