Also 7 tant a mount, tanta-mount, tantamont, 7–8 tant’amount. [app. from the sb. The earlier quots. under a. are scarcely distinguishable from quot. 1641 in the sb. Perh. influenced by paramount.] As much; that amounts to as much, that comes to the same thing; of the same amount; equivalent.
† a. In predicate without construction. Obs.
1641. O. St. John, Argument of Law, etc. 24. If a man take the broad Seale from one Pattent, and put it to another, here he is counterfeiting, it’s tantamount, and therefore Treason.
1686. Goad, Celest. Bodies, I. xv. 80. Conjunction, Opposition, and Quadrate go for Tant-amount in the Meteorological Part.
1769. Burke, Corr. (1844), I. 169. Provided instructions (or thanks, which are tantamount but more respectful) should be the mode proposed.
1826. Southey, Vind. Eccl. Angl., 224. You … avoid the word, and speak of the Real Presence, as if the terms were tantamount.
† b. Const. as, with. Obs.
1644. Bp. Maxwell, Prerog. Chr. Kings, 10. Howsoever their tenets by deductions and consequences are tant’amount as theirs.
1644. J. Goodwin, Innoc. & Truth Triumph. (1645), 11. I utterly renounce the consequence, conceiving it to be tantamont with an absolute mistake.
1684. T. Burnet, Th. Earth, I. 256. For this is tantamount with the former.
a. 1692. Pollexfen, Disc. Trade (1697), 57. Tant a mount, as if carried from us in Money.
c. Const. to. The current use.
1652. Heylin, Cosmogr., Introd. 7. That saying of Berosus will prove tantamont to a Text or Scripture. Ibid. (1659), Certamin Epist., 389. They are tantamount to a plain acknowledgement.
a. 1692. Pollexfen, Disc. Trade (1697), 93. They … laid such Impositions on our Woolen Goods, as was tant a mount to a Prohibition.
1777. J. Lovell, in Sparks, Corr. Amer. Rev. (1853), I. 411. Is not this … tantamount to a disavowal of the first treaty?
1874. Carpenter, Ment. Phys., I. i. § 18. Is not this tantamount to saying that they go on by a force of their own?
d. attributively. rare.
1692. Bp. Patrick, Answ. Touchstone, 17. Giving us express Words, and not words Tantamount.
1798. Washington, Lett., Writ. 1893, XIV. 29. The President; to whom I have expressed tantamount sentiments in more concise terms.
1868. Rogers, Pol. Econ., i. (1876), 3. A tantamount service should be given in exchange for them.
