number

amount, number

Amount is normally used with uncountable nouns (i.e. nouns which have no plural) to mean ‘quantity’ (e.g. a reasonable amount of forgiveness, glue, resistance, straw, etc.), and number with plural nouns (e.g. a certain number of boys, houses, jobs, etc.). Amount, however, is fast breaking into the territory of number, especially when the following plural noun is regarded as an aggregate or collection. Examples:

• Fame had magnified the amount of the forces —1849 in OED

• I have any amount of letters for you —George Bernard Shaw, 1893

• I expect you get a fair amount of road accidents on these winding roads —Rachel Billington, 1988

• Billy's had a tremendous amount of problems —T. McGuane, AmE 1989

• Booksellers have less and less space for the amount of books that are being published —The Author, 1990

• The amount of bulbs she would find between the stones next spring —A. Huth, 1991.

Note that quantity can be used with all types of nouns (a large quantity of parcels / a small quantity of sugar).

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number

is a grammatical term denoting the status of words as singular or plural. See agreement.