Synonyms

a lot

American

[uh lot] / ə ˈlɒt /

noun

a lot Idioms

Very many, a large number; also, very much. For example, A lot of people think the economy is declining, or Sad movies always made her cry a lot. It is sometimes put as a whole lot for greater emphasis, as in I learned a whole lot in his class. It may also emphasize a comparative indication of amount, as in We need a whole lot more pizza to feed everyone, or Mary had a lot less nerve than I expected. [Colloquial; early 1800s]

As a noun and adverb, a lot is frequently misspelled as alot.

First recorded in 1820–30

How does a-lot compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

That was a lot of money, I thought, but it wasn’t that much money.

From Salon

We have beaten a lot of big teams recently, but we haven't beaten City for a long time, especially at the Cottage.

From BBC

“I guess there have been a lot of people who have come into government with worse backgrounds.”

From MarketWatch

While it was shaping up to be a shaky day for the stock market, over in the world of silver the news was a lot shinier.

From Barron's

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023