How to Use the sum of in a Sentence

the sum of

phrase
  • The film is the sum of its parts.
    — Lily Ford, HollywoodReporter, 14 Aug. 2025
  • Look, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
    — Kate Aurthur, Variety, 21 Nov. 2025
  • In the end, the sum of the parts were greater than the whole.
    — Borys Kit, The Hollywood Reporter, 22 Dec. 2023
  • This leaves some songs feeling less than the sum of their parts.
    — Paul Thompson, Vulture, 20 June 2023
  • But the show never adds up to more than the sum of its parts.
    — Inkoo Kang, New Yorker, 22 Nov. 2025
  • For us, clearly the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
    — Hadley Meares, The Hollywood Reporter, 8 Apr. 2024
  • The whole is, after all, greater than the sum of its parts.
    — Valerie Mesa, PEOPLE, 7 Oct. 2025
  • This creamy, cheese casserole is so much more than the sum of its parts.
    — Josh Miller, Southern Living, 8 Apr. 2026
  • The 76ers badly need the sum of its parts.
    — Tony Jones, New York Times, 8 Mar. 2026
  • The whole—well, in this case, the duo—should be greater than the sum of its parts.
    — Karla Walsh, Better Homes & Gardens, 28 Oct. 2025
  • But as with the best stories, the truth is more than the sum of its parts.
    — Anna Washenko, Ars Technica, 20 June 2024
  • The ranking is based on the sum of both numbers.
    — Saad Yousuf, New York Times, 15 Jan. 2026
  • The result is watches that are more than the sum of their parts.
    — Blake Buettner, Robb Report, 6 Dec. 2024
  • He’s always punched above his weight and made a team more than the sum of its parts.
    — Liam Tharme, The Athletic, 9 Jan. 2025
  • The whole isn't greater than the sum of its parts; that's a flaw in our thinking.
    — Big Think, 29 Jan. 2026
  • The axis of the sanctioned will be more than the sum of its parts.
    — Hanna Notte, Foreign Affairs, 6 Oct. 2023
  • Of course, the motion of the moon depends on the sum of these forces.
    — Rhett Allain, WIRED, 22 Nov. 2024
  • That is, there might be a knot that really is less than the sum of its parts.
    — Leila Sloman, Quanta Magazine, 22 Sep. 2025
  • The total pay shown is the sum of gross pay on state worker pay stubs for each year.
    — Sacramento Bee Staff, Sacramento Bee, 11 Feb. 2025
  • In some yet-to-be-determined way, our whole is more than the sum of our parts.
    — Diana Gitig, Ars Technica, 12 Nov. 2023
  • The number in the middle is the sum of three numbers on the side.
    — Paul Tassi, Forbes, 10 Feb. 2023
  • The group is more than the sum of its current number of fighters.
    — Robert A. Pape, Foreign Affairs, 21 June 2024
  • The record is hopefully the total of more than the sum of the parts.
    — Jason Pettigrew, SPIN, 19 Apr. 2023
  • There is no easy way to explain the sum of Google’s knowledge.
    — Caroline Mimbs Nyce, The Atlantic, 6 Nov. 2023
  • Two or more professionals can amount to more than the sum of their parts.
    — Big Think, 20 June 2024
  • These moments always seem to be somehow less than the sum of their parts.
    — Brittney Melton, NPR, 16 Sep. 2024
  • The whole is much greater than the sum of the parts in Milwaukee.
    — Tony Blengino, Forbes.com, 12 Aug. 2025
  • 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
  • Get $200 in free bets and the sum of your cash winnings if your team wins.
    — cleveland, 2 Oct. 2022
  • But for Harms, a home represents far more than the sum of those parts.
    — Samantha Delouya, CNN Money, 15 Oct. 2025

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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