Amounted

Amounted is the past tense and past participle of the verb amount. It denotes the act of reaching a total or value, or of becoming equivalent to a specified amount. In modern use, this often refers to money, quantities, or numerical totals.

Usage is primarily intransitive and typically takes the preposition to in the phrase amount to, meaning to total or to come to a certain figure. For example: The damages amounted to $5,000. The annual expenses amounted to more than we expected. The turnout amounted to about 1,200 people. In this construction the emphasis is on the final total rather than on the action of summing.

Transitivity is limited in contemporary English. Using amount as a transitive verb (to amount something) is uncommon and usually considered nonstandard or archaic. Most modern writers prefer phrases such as total, sum to, come to, or amount to when describing totals or equivalencies.

The word often appears in discussions of finance, statistics, law, and planning, where precise totals are important. When choosing between amount and number, amount is generally used with uncountable quantities or sums of money, while number is used for countable items.

Etymology links the verb amount to the noun amount, with uses dating back to the Middle English period as the sense of reaching a total emerged and solidified in the language. Amounted as a form is common in narrative and formal writing when referring to completed totals.