(often followed by `of') a large number or amount or extent
"a batch of letters"
"a deal of trouble"
"a lot of money"
"he made a mint on the stock market"
"see the rest of the winners in our huge passel of photos"
"it must have cost plenty"
"a slew of journalists"
"a wad of money"
(Old Testament) nephew of Abraham; God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah but chose to spare Lot and his family who were told to flee without looking back at the destruction
"In our Bible study group, we discussed how Lot was spared from the fire that consumed Sodom when he obeyed God's command to flee without looking back."
A large quantity or number; a great deal.
"She spent an awful lot of time preparing for the presentation."
In plain English: A lot is a large amount of something, like having a lot of friends or a lot of homework.
"The new house sits on a large lot near the river."
Usage: Use "lot" to describe a large amount of something when you want to emphasize its size or number, often in phrases like "a lot of." It functions similarly to the word "much" for uncountable nouns but is more common in spoken English and informal writing.
divide into lots, as of land, for example
"The developer decided to subdivide the large tract of forest into smaller lots for residential housing."
administer or bestow, as in small portions
"administer critical remarks to everyone present"
"dole out some money"
"shell out pocket money for the children"
"deal a blow to someone"
"the machine dispenses soft drinks"
To allot; to sort; to apportion.
"The judge will lot the prisoners into three separate groups for trial."
In plain English: To lot means to divide something into groups by chance, like drawing names out of a hat.
"Please do not park your car in that lot, as the city is cleaning it up."
Usage: Use "lot" as a verb only in formal or archaic contexts to mean distributing tasks among people by chance or methodically assigning duties. In modern everyday speech, this usage is extremely rare and should generally be replaced with clearer alternatives like "assign," "allocate," or "divide."
A nephew of Abraham in the Bible and Quran.
"Many scholars debate whether Lot was actually a physical descendant of Abraham or simply his spiritual heir according to some interpretations of scripture."
The word "lot" comes from Old English hlot, which originally meant a portion or choice used for making decisions. It traveled into modern English through Middle English while retaining its core sense of an assigned share or fate.