late 13c., "to go up, rise, mount (a horse)," from Old French amonter "rise, go up; mean, signify," from amont (adv.) "upward, uphill," literally "to the mountain" (12c.), a contraction of the prepositional phrase a mont, from a (from Latin ad "to;" see ad-) + Latin montem (nominative mons) "mountain" (from PIE root *men- (2) "to project").
The meaning "to rise in number or quality (so as to reach)" is from c. 1300. Compare mount (v.). Related: Amounted; amounting.
"quantity, sum," 1710, from amount (v.). As nouns, Middle English had amountance, amountment.
mid-13c., monie, "funds, means, anything convertible into money;" c. 1300, "coinage, coin, metal currency," from Old French monoie "money, coin, currency; change" (Modern French monnaie), from Latin moneta "place for coining money, mint; coined money, money, coinage," from Moneta, a title or surname of the Roman goddess Juno, near whose temple on the Capitoline Hill money was coined (and in which perhaps the precious metal was stored); from monere "advise, warn, admonish" (on the model of stative verbs in -ere; see monitor (n.)), by tradition with the sense of "admonishing goddess," which is sensible, but the etymology is difficult. A doublet of mint (n.2)).
It had been justly stated by a British writer that the power to make a small piece of paper, not worth one cent, by the inscribing of a few names, to be worth a thousand dollars, was a power too high to be entrusted to the hands of mortal man. [John C. Calhoun, speech, U.S. Senate, Dec. 29, 1841]
Extended by early 19c. to include paper recognized and accepted as a substitute for coin. The highwayman's threat your money or your life is attested by 1774. Phrase in the money (1902) originally referred to "one who finishes among the prize-winners" (in a horse race, etc.). The challenge to put (one's) money where (one's) mouth is is recorded by 1942 in African-American vernacular. Money-grub for "avaricious person, one who is sordidly intent on amassing money" is from 1768; money-grubber is by 1835. The image of money burning a hole in someone's pocket is attested from 1520s (brennyd out the botom of hys purs).
I am not interested in money but in the things of which money is the symbol. [Henry Ford]
"edifice or project requiring constant outlay of cash with little to show for it," 1986 (year of a movie of the same name); see money (n.) + pit (n.). Before that (1930s), it was used for the shaft on Oak Island, Nova Scotia, that supposedly leads to treasure buried by Capt. Kidd or some other pirate. "Whether that name refers to the treasure or the several million dollars spent trying to get the treasure out is unclear." [Popular Mechanics, Sept. 1976]
1829, colloquial shortening of elevenpence (see eleven). In U.S. before c. 1860, a Spanish real or an equivalent amount of some other money (about 12 and a half cents).
late 14c., paiement, "action of paying, repayment of a debt; amount due as a payment," from Old French paiement (13c.), from paiier (see pay (v.)). Meaning "thing or sum of money given in discharge of a debt" is from mid-15c.