Total

//ˈtəʊ.tl̩// adj, noun, verb, slang

adj, noun, verb, slang ·Very common ·Middle school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An amount obtained by the addition of smaller amounts.

    "A total of £145 was raised by the bring-and-buy stall."

  2. 2
    the whole amount wordnet
  3. 3
    Sum. informal

    "The total of 4, 5 and 6 is 15."

  4. 4
    a quantity obtained by the addition of a group of numbers wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To add up; to calculate the sum of. transitive

    "When we totalled the takings, we always got a different figure."

  2. 2
    damage beyond the point of repair wordnet
  3. 3
    To equal a total of; to amount to.

    "That totals seven times so far."

  4. 4
    determine the sum of wordnet
  5. 5
    To demolish; to wreck completely. (from total loss) US, slang, transitive

    "Honey, I’m OK, but I’ve totaled the car."

Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    add up in number or quantity wordnet
  2. 7
    To amount to; to add up to. intransitive

    "It totals nearly a pound."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Entire; relating to the whole of something.

    "The total book is rubbish from start to finish.  The total number of votes cast is 3,270."

  2. 2
    Complete; absolute.

    "He is a total failure."

  3. 3
    Defined on all possible inputs.

    "The Ackermann function is one of the simplest and earliest examples of a total computable function that is not primitive recursive."

  4. 4
    Left total: Such that for every x in X there is a y in Y with x R y. broadly
  5. 5
    Such that any two elements are comparable, i.e. for all a and b, either a ≤ b, or b ≤ a.
Adjective
  1. 1
    constituting the full quantity or extent; complete wordnet
  2. 2
    complete in extent or degree and in every particular wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
entiresumabsoluteadd upamountcomplete

Example

More examples

"How much money did you spend in total?"

Etymology

From Middle English total, from Old French total, from Medieval Latin tōtālis, from tōtus (“all, whole, entire”) + -ālis, the former element of unknown origin. Perhaps related to Oscan touto (“community, city-state”), Umbrian 𐌕𐌏𐌕𐌀𐌌 (totam, “tribe”, acc.), Old English þēod (“a nation, people, tribe”), from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂ (“people”). More at English Dutch, English thede.

Related phrases

grand totalin totalleft totalright totalsum totalsum-totaltotal allergy syndrometotal base numbertotal basestotal body daytotal clearancetotal conversion

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.