Translation
sum, total; the whole; summary, treatise
Examples
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The sum of money was large.
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He paid the whole sum at once.
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Part of the sum has already been paid.
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The whole situation is at stake.
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All in all, we heard nothing new.
Summa, summae, f., first declension. It started as the feminine of summus, "highest", with res understood: summa res, "the highest matter". Roman clerks added a column upwards and wrote the total at the top, so the "highest" line was the sum, and that accounting habit is why English has sum, summary and summit from the same word.
The idioms carry a lot of weight: summa rerum is the whole situation or the state as a whole, summa imperii the supreme command, in summa "in short". Medieval Latin added one more, a comprehensive treatise covering a whole field - which is exactly what Aquinas meant by Summa Theologiae. Keep it apart from the adjective summus and the adverb summe.
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summa: worksheet, infographic and listicle
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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 7.