Totaled

How to spell totaled

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce totaled

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does totaled mean?

1. verbAdded up to a given amount, or worked out the complete sum of something.
2. verbDamaged a vehicle so badly that repair costs exceed its value.

Totaled in a sentence

• The restaurant bill totaled just over ninety dollars.

• He totaled his pickup truck when he skidded into the barrier.

• Her annual expenses totaled more than she had budgeted.

• The insurer declared that the storm had totaled both parked cars.

Where does totaled come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the past-tense form of the verb 'total', which traces back to the Latin adjective totus, meaning 'whole' or 'entire'. From totus, medieval Latin built totalis, 'pertaining to the whole', and that adjective passed into English through Old French as 'total' in the late 1300s, first as an adjective and then as the noun for a complete sum. The verb sense, 'to add up to' or 'to find the sum of', developed later. In twentieth-century American usage the verb gained a vivid colloquial meaning, 'to wreck completely', as when a car is damaged beyond its total value. The single-L spelling 'totaled' is the standard American form; British and Canadian writers double the L to make 'totalled', because they stress the suffix rules differently, and that one missing letter is the whole spelling trap here.

How the word is built

• total (from Latin totus: whole, entire)
• -ed (past tense suffix)