Amount or Amounts? What is correct?

Vocabulary / By

Both “Amount” and “Amounts are correct. We use “amount” with singular and uncountable nouns and we use “amounts” with plural nouns. 

There is a large amount of money under the bed.

He has large amounts of cryptocurrencies in his cold wallet.

In the above examples, “money” is an uncountable noun so we use “amount”. In the second example, we are talking about multiple currencies so we need to use “amounts”.  

When to use Amount

We use “amount” when the noun is singular or uncountable. 

It is important to note that by “singular” we also mean there is only one type of thing 

Consider:

There is a large amount of cheese on the table.

In this example, we are implying that there is only one type of cheese on the table. Because “cheese” is usually uncountable, we might use “a large amount of cheese” even if there are a few types of cheese on the table. We just want to emphasize the large amount of cheese on the table.  

When to use Amounts

We would only use “large amounts” when we want to emphasize the different types of plural nouns. 

So:

There are large amounts of cheeses on the table.

In this case, we not only want to say that there is a lot of cheese on the table but we also want to emphasize that there are many types of cheese like Camembert, Brie, Cheddar, etc. 

Read more about when to use food or foods. 

Can the word amount be plural?

Yes, the plural of “amount” is “amounts”.  We can use “amounts” with plural nouns especially when we want to show that different types of plural nouns exist.

Is it a large amount or large amounts?

We can use “a large amount” or “large amounts” depending on the context.

There is a large amount of data available.

There are large amounts of data available. 

In the first example, this data may all be the same type of data(or that might not be important to the speaker) whereas in the second example there may be different types of data available. In other words, the data may have been separate and collected together. 

Is it a copious/numerous/small amount or copious/numerous/small amounts?

Copious or numerous or small(or any other quantifier) function in the same way as “large” above. 

Conor
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