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Amount vs Attain - What's the difference?

amount | attain |

As verbs the difference between amount and attain

is that amount is to total or evaluate while attain is to accomplish; to achieve.

As a noun amount

is the total, aggregate or sum of material not applicable to discrete numbers or units or items in standard English.

amount

English

(Quantity)

Noun

(en noun)
  • The total, aggregate or sum of material (not applicable to discrete numbers or units or items in standard English).
  • A quantity or volume.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-26, author=(Leo Hickman)
  • , volume=189, issue=7, page=26, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= How algorithms rule the world , passage=The use of algorithms in policing is one example of their increasing influence on our lives.
  • The number (the sum) of elements in a set.
  • * 2001 , Gisella Gori, Towards an EU right to education , page 195:
  • The final amount of students who have participated to mobility for the period 1995-1999 is held to be around 460 000.

    Derived terms

    * principal amount * notional amount

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To total or evaluate.
  • It amounts to three dollars and change.
  • To be the same as or equivalent to.
  • He was a pretty good student, but never amounted to much professionally.
    His response amounted to gross insubordination
  • (obsolete) To go up; to ascend.
  • * Spenser
  • So up he rose, and thence amounted straight.

    Derived terms

    * amount to

    See also

    * extent * magnitude * measurement * number * quantity * size

    attain

    English

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To accomplish; to achieve.
  • To attain such a high level of proficiency requires hours of practice each day.
  • To get at the knowledge of; to ascertain.
  • * Fuller
  • not well attaining his meaning
  • To reach or come to, by progression or motion; to arrive at.
  • * Milton
  • Canaan he now attains .
  • * Bible, Psalms cxxxix. 6
  • Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I can not attain unto it.
  • To come or arrive, by motion, growth, bodily exertion, or efforts toward a place, object, state, etc.; to reach.
  • * Bible, Acts xxvii. 12
  • if by any means they might attain to Phenice
  • * Sir Walter Scott
  • Nor nearer might the dogs attain .
  • * Cowper
  • to see your trees attain to the dignity of timber
  • * J. R. Green
  • Few boroughs had as yet attained to power such as this.
  • To reach in excellence or degree; to equal.
  • (obsolete) To overtake.
  • (Francis Bacon)