How to Use the sum of in a Sentence
the sum of
idiom-
In the end, the sum of the parts were greater than the whole.
—Borys Kit, The Hollywood Reporter, 22 Dec. 2023
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So that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
—Steven Strogatz, Quanta Magazine, 28 June 2023
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But one hopes that the shame isn’t the sum of the story.
—Katy Waldman, The New Yorker, 18 June 2023
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But as with the best stories, the truth is more than the sum of its parts.
—Anna Washenko, Ars Technica, 20 June 2024
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For us, clearly the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
—Hadley Meares, The Hollywood Reporter, 8 Apr. 2024
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The axis of the sanctioned will be more than the sum of its parts.
—Hanna Notte, Foreign Affairs, 6 Oct. 2023
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The record is hopefully the total of more than the sum of the parts.
—Jason Pettigrew, SPIN, 19 Apr. 2023
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The number in the middle is the sum of three numbers on the side.
—Paul Tassi, Forbes, 10 Feb. 2023
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Now this is a recipe truly greater than the sum of its parts.
—Michelle Huneven, Los Angeles Times, 15 June 2023
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And the sum of the numbers in the Chiefs' rival teams name is (drumroll) 4+9=13.
—Kelsie Gibson, Peoplemag, 31 Jan. 2024
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Get $200 in free bets and the sum of your cash winnings if your team wins.
—cleveland, 2 Oct. 2022
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This leaves some songs feeling less than the sum of their parts.
—Paul Thompson, Vulture, 20 June 2023
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Sometimes the whole is worth more than the sum of the parts, and that's the secret of this Passat.
—Frank Markus, Car and Driver, 31 Aug. 2023
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The filling becomes much greater than the sum of its parts.
—Chandler Boese, Kansas City Star, 18 Jan. 2024
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Even more rarely, the sum of two rich numbers is rich again.
—Manon Bischoff, Scientific American, 28 July 2023
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The Legacy ends up being far less than the sum of its parts.
—Joey Capparella, Car and Driver, 4 Aug. 2023
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There is no easy way to explain the sum of Google’s knowledge.
—Caroline Mimbs Nyce, The Atlantic, 6 Nov. 2023
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The group is more than the sum of its current number of fighters.
—Robert A. Pape, Foreign Affairs, 21 June 2024
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And those virtues and talents combine to form a whole that is much greater than the sum of its parts.
—Csaba Csere, Car and Driver, 8 Apr. 2023
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Certain drinks become more than the sum of their parts.
—M. Carrie Allan, Washington Post, 23 Mar. 2023
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In some yet-to-be-determined way, our whole is more than the sum of our parts.
—Diana Gitig, Ars Technica, 12 Nov. 2023
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The total pay shown is the sum of gross pay on state worker pay stubs for each year.
—Sacramento Bee Staff, Sacramento Bee, 24 Jan. 2024
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This line passes through the middle of some slice of the pizza: The number of the slice is the sum of the two numbers.
—Anil Ananthaswamy, Quanta Magazine, 12 Apr. 2024
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The first is a product of the medical record—the sum of blood tests, X-rays, and urine samples.
—Dhruv Khullar, The New Yorker, 18 Feb. 2024
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Heading into their off week, the Chargers still feel less than the sum of their parts.
—Dylan Hernández, Los Angeles Times, 2 Oct. 2023
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Descartes asserted that the sum of all the squared curvatures equals half the square of the sum of the curvatures.
—Quanta Magazine, 10 Aug. 2023
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Two or more professionals can amount to more than the sum of their parts.
—Big Think, 20 June 2024
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But food, like other aspects of culture, is more than the sum of its parts.
—Emiene Wright, Charlotte Observer, 30 Jan. 2024
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At first glance, a garden might seem to hold nothing more than the sum of its parts: flowers, greenery, perhaps some fruit trees or vegetable patches.
—Maya Chung, The Atlantic, 12 July 2024
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When the sum of the inflation and unemployment rates – what’s known as the misery index – is high, incumbents lose.
—Oli Turner, The Christian Science Monitor, 5 July 2024
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'the sum of.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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