How to use tantamount in a sentence

15 example sentences · adjective, verb, noun

Tantamount means equivalent in meaning or effect; amounting to the same thing in practical terms, even if being technically distinct. Example: “In Bosnia, as in Rwanda, however, passive neutrality was tantamount to complicity with the perpetrators of “ethnic cleansing” and mass murder.”

Examples of tantamount by meaning

adjectiveEquivalent in meaning or effect; amounting to the same thing in practical terms, even if being technically distinct.

In Bosnia, as in Rwanda, however, passive neutrality was tantamount to complicity with the perpetrators of “ethnic cleansing” and mass murder.2003 March 3, Philip Gourevitch, “The Optimist”, in The New Yorker
Russia has said that it considers the weapons and other increased military aid that Western governments are sending to Ukraine tantamount to war, and has implied that it might strike NATO convoys.2022 March 16, Max Fisher, “As Russia Digs In, What’s the Risk of Nuclear War? ‘It’s Not Zero.’”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
Musk is not running DOGE are tantamount to legal gaslighting,” CREW said.2025 March 30, Tierney Sneed, “Is DOGE actually an agency? The answer could have major ramifications”, in CNN

nounSomething which has the same value or amount (as something else). (attributive use passing into adjective, below).

For end thereof, not despondency but madness : for when Cossey understood that Hobday had called his wife a tantamount, he waited for him outside, and gave him what he called a pair of clippers over the ear.1977, Last Essays of Maurice Hewlett, page 42

More sentences with tantamount

Existence of an enemy within is tantamount to kicking a self-goal.2016, Kooveli Madom, “Factors Influencing Our Predicament”, in Know Your Enemy Within: Bridging Knowledge and Practice of Management…. From the entry Chanakya
Failing to do so is tantamount to putting metal in the science oven.2015, Ryan Craig, College Disrupted: The Great Unbundling of Higher Education, →ISBN, page 208. From the entry science oven
Some have suggested that a federal conflicts statute would be tantamount to scholasticide, the “truly unpardonable sin.”1995, Texas International Law Journal, volume 30, University of Texas School of Law, page 202. From the entry scholasticide
In algebraic geometry, the tropical equilibration problem is tantamount to finding tropical prevarieties, that are finite intersections of tropical hypersurfaces.2015, Satya Swarup Samal, Dima Grigoriev, Holger Fröhlich, Ovidiu Radulescu, “Analysis of Reaction Network Systems Using Tropical…. From the entry prevarieties
Such a response is appropriate where revealing even the existence of the information would be tantamount to disclosing it.2006, P. Stephen Gidiere (III), The Federal Information Manual: How the Government Collects, Manages, and Discloses Information Under FOIA…. From the entry Glomar response
The cultural quixotics attribute the change to inscrutable "cultural factors," which is tantamount to abandoning altogether the search for explanation.1975, Michael B. Schiffer, John H. House, The Cache River Archeological Project, page 179. From the entry quixotic
So their discussion is tantamount to nondiscussion.1967, Franz Schurmann, David Milton, Orville Schell, The China reader. From the entry nondiscussion
This may be because, for Democrats in the Bush era, accepting changes in the workplace is considered tantamount to siding with Bushian corporatists.2007 November 4, Matt Bai, “Home-Office Politics”, in New York Times. From the entry corporatist
Until I arrived, that was considered tantamount to making a sale a day, but despite my record of successful entrances I always made saleless exits.1997, Ben H. Bagdikian, Double Vision: Reflections on My Heritage, Life and Profession, page 146. From the entry saleless
"From today onwards", he legislated, "a woman's infidelity to her husband shall be a sin tantamount to aborticide, an evil that will engender misery.1988, Sarva Daman Singh, Polyandry in Ancient India, page 78. From the entry aborticide
The word mourning is such an amorce, which prefigures the novel's denouement and also suggests that Jean's rejection of their daughter is tantamount to "killing" her.1994, Irène Assiba d' Almeida, Francophone African Women Writers, →ISBN, page 103. From the entry amorce

Meaning of tantamount

adjective Equivalent in meaning or effect; amounting to the same thing in practical terms, even if being technically distinct.
verb To amount to as much; to be equivalent.
noun Something which has the same value or amount (as something else). (attributive use passing into adjective, below).

Full definition of tantamount

Questions about tantamount in a sentence

How do you use tantamount in a sentence?: Tantamount is used as an adjective, verb and noun. For example: “In Bosnia, as in Rwanda, however, passive neutrality was tantamount to complicity with the perpetrators of “ethnic cleansing” and mass murder.”
What is a short sentence with tantamount?: “So their discussion is tantamount to nondiscussion.”
What does tantamount mean?: Tantamount means equivalent in meaning or effect; amounting to the same thing in practical terms, even if being technically distinct.

Adapted from Wiktionary: tantamount (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use tantamount in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/tantamount. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.