manydeterminer, pronoun
uk/ˈmen.i/us/ˈmen.i/A1 used mainly in negative sentences and questions and with "too", "so", and "as" to mean "a large number of":
I don't have many clothes.
Not many people have heard of him.
There aren't very many weekends between now and Christmas.
Were there many cars on the road?
How many students are there in each class?
Many people would disagree with your ideas.
Rachel was at the party with her many admirers.
I've met him so many times and I still can't remember his name!
There are too many people chasing too few jobs.
If there are only five of us going to the concert, then I've booked one too many seats.
If there were as many women as there are men in parliament, the situation would be very different.
As many as (= the surprisingly large number of) 6,000 people may have been infected with the disease.
There are already twelve bottles of wine, so if I buy as many again (= another twelve bottles) we'll have enough.
A good/great many people who voted for her in the last election will not be doing so this time.
She had five children in as many (= in the same number of) years and decided it was enough.
More examples
- Mr Black has been a client of this firm for many years.
- High prices are deterring many young people from buying houses.
- How many people does your company employ?
- There are too many silly quiz shows on television these days.
- The school has pupils from many different ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Masses and large amounts of things
- accumulation
- an embarrassment of riches idiom
- any number of things idiom
- backlog
- battery
- boatload
- bolus
- clot
- deluge
- fund
- lashing
- panoply
- plethora
- predominance
- preponderance
- profusion
- sheet
- shower
- thousand
- tidal wave
See more results »
Idiom(s)
in so many words
many a time
many happy returns (of the day)
many's the
one too many