Origin: Latin suffix -al
Total has 10 different meanings across 3 categories:
An amount obtained by the addition of smaller amounts.
"After adding up all the tickets sold for each show, we reached a total of five thousand entries."
In plain English: Total is the complete amount of something when everything is added together.
"The total cost of the groceries was fifty dollars."
damage beyond the point of repair
"My son totaled our new car"
"the rock star totals his guitar at every concert"
To add up; to calculate the sum of.
"The cashier used a calculator to total the prices of all the items before charging my card."
In plain English: To total something means to add up all its parts to find the final sum.
"They will total the bill at the end of dinner."
Entire; relating to the whole of something.
"The total cost of the renovation exceeded our budget by several thousand dollars."
In plain English: Total means complete, with nothing left out or missing.
"The total cost of the groceries was higher than I expected."
Usage: Use total as an adjective before nouns, such as in "the total cost," rather than after them like "a cost that is total." It functions similarly to complete or entire when describing a sum without any parts left out.
Total comes from Medieval Latin tōtālis, which was built on the word tōtus meaning "all" or "whole." The root of this original sense is unknown, though it may be related to ancient terms for people and tribes found in other Indo-European languages.