Tantamount

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The Word of the Day for August 11 is:

tantamount  \TANT-uh-mount\  adjective
     : equivalent in value, significance, or effect

Example sentence:
     The boss had told Morris that he was being reassigned to
the shipping department, and he knew that it was tantamount to a
demotion.

Did you know?
     "Tantamount" comes from the Anglo-French phrase "tant
amunter," meaning "to amount to as much." This phrase comes from
the Old French "tant," meaning "so much" or "as much,"
and "amounter," meaning "to ascend" or "to add up to."
When "tantamount" first entered English, it was used similarly
to the Anglo-French phrase, as a verb meaning "to be
equivalent." "His not denying tant-amounteth to the affirming of
the matter," wrote clergyman Thomas Fuller in 1659, for example.
There was also a noun "tantamount" in the 17th century, but the
adjective is the only commonly used form of the term nowadays.





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