Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Equivalent in effect or value: a request tantamount to a demand.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To be tantamount or equivalent.
- Equivalent, as in value, force, effect, or signification.
Wiktionary
- v. To amount to as much; to be equivalent.
- n. Something which has the same value or amount (as something else). (attributive use passing into adjective, below)
- adj. Equivalent in meaning or effect.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Equivalent in value, signification, or effect.
- v. To be tantamount or equivalent; to amount.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. being essentially equal to something
Etymologies
- From obsolete tantamount, an equivalent, from Anglo-Norman tant amunter, to amount to as much : tant, so much, so great (from Latin tantum, neuter of tantus, from tam, so; see to- in Indo-European roots) + amunter, to amount to, variant of Old French amonter; see amount.
Examples
“It began when the band refused permission for their music to be covered by the Glee cast, which they described as tantamount to "selling out".”
“He faced a wave of criticism for saying Monday that Texas would treat Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke "ugly" if he pursues more stimulus -- an action he described as tantamount to treason.”
“I consider the regime's retreat in the matter of women's political participation-which at one point it called tantamount to prostitution-an extremely positive point.”
“One of the McCain campaign's chief assaults on Barack Obama is that McCain is insisting that the troops return only after "victory" in Iraq, while Obama refuses to use that word -- a position the McCain forces describe as tantamount to wanting to lose.”
“And it was this move, Rob, that North Korea called tantamount to a declaration of war.”
“He was received with flawless, cold courtesy—the “ceremonious civility” which Washington had once described as tantamount to incivility.”
“Brown insisted that Starbucks' use of the acronym is tantamount to trademark infringement.”
“Instead, it established a hotline for children and others to report abuses, has a minimal staff, gets about 200 requests a year, visits homes for educational purposes, advises violators to stop their practices, occasionally removes abused children, but barely addresses the problem Shahinian called tantamount to slavery and condemned.”
“The organisation received heavy criticism following an £89m deal in 2007 to acquire a 75% controlling stake in Lonely Planet, which Sky chairman James Murdoch recently described as tantamount to a "nationalisation" of the travel guide publisher.”
“FROM THE moment US military and civilian officials began detaining and interrogating Guantanamo Bay prisoners with methods that the Red Cross has called tantamount to torture, they have had the assistance of psychologists.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘tantamount’.
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gre
municipal, whit, dissembler, berate, liberally, embellish, dissimilitude, histrionics, flamboyance, bombastic, bovine, calumny and 142 more...
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GRE Study guide
Going through the Magoosh website, words I pulled from the verbal section. 2012.
magnanimous, correlate, anglicized, simulacrum, tantamount, obsequiousness, subterfuge, vehement, vociferous, benign, concomitant, veracity and 83 more...
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Bright Folk
Some words I come across in my legal studies, though not really legal jargon. And the usage doesn't shout, "hey, I think I'm smart", just simply, "this is what applies in this context."
verbose, inter alia, ostentatious, usurp, presumptuous, anachronistic, unfettered, sine qua non, amenable, subversive, irreducible, penumbra and 27 more...
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Words to make you sound smart
duality, hence, inference, deduce, juxtapose, mundane, gregarious, plight, esoteric, austere, encompass, subsidize and 17 more...
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fav1
ostensibly, fait accompli, edification, machination, vamp, abstruse, ebullient, tantamount, reductio, asymptotic, ad hominem, syllogism and 7 more...
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fancy essay words
hiatus, ontology, exegesis, hermeneutics, dialectics, demiurge, ascertain, contention, eschatological, synecdoche, centripetal, centrifugal and 86 more...
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Spring 2012
Words encountered while reading for school
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