tantamount

equal to

TRANSLATION

tantamount = gleichbedeutend, gleichwertig —— to be tantamount to sth. = etw. gleichkommen, gleichbedeutend mit etw. sein

STATISTICS

IN THE PRESS

“The commission argued that the favourable tax treatment the firms were receiving was TANTAMOUNT to a government subsidy, and thus illegal under European rules on ‘state aid’. The two countries, worried that the decision will deter other foreign firms from investing.”

The Economist

Did you
know?

tantamount (to)
adjective

- equivalent in value, significance, or effect

Merriam-Webster


WORD ORIGIN

The adjective “tantamount” meaning “equivalent” came into English from Anglo-Norman, the dialect of French that was spoken in England from the Norman Conquest in 1066 until the end of the Middle Ages. It derives from the Latin word tantus which means “so great” or “so much”, and the word “amount”, which means “to measure”.


TANTAMOUNT EXAMPLES

- Commonly used in legal contexts where one action or decision is considered to be equivalent to another, often in terms of the consequences that may result. For example, “Refusing to sign the contract is TANTAMOUNT to rejecting the offer.”

- Also applied where one thing is considered to be a necessary or logical consequence of another. For example, “The company’s financial problems are TANTAMOUNT to bankruptcy.”

- Conveys a sense of strong equivalence or near-equality, rather than a simple match in value or significance. For example, “Winning the championship is TANTAMOUNT to achieving the ultimate goal in this sport.”
 

SYNONYMS

- equivalent in meaning or effect

accordant (with), alike, as good as, as like as two peas in a pod, at one with, carbon-copy, co-equal, cognate, commensurate (with), comparable (to), concordant (with), conforming to (with), consonant (with), correspondent to (with), counterpart, cut from the same cloth, dead ringer, equal, equivalent, exchangeable, identical (to), impossible to tell apart, indiscriminable, indistinguishable, in the same category, like peas in a pod, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, on a par (with), one and the same, on level pegging, same (as), same difference, self-same, synonymous (with), TANTAMOUNT (to), with nothing to choose between them


SMUGGLE OWAD into an English conversation, say something like:

Mahatma Gandhi once said that “Victory attained by violence is TANTAMOUNT to a defeat, for it is momentary."


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