We uselots,a lotandplentyin informal styles to talk about quantities, amounts and degree.Lotsanda lotare similar in meaning tomuchandmany.Plentymeans ‘enough’ or ‘more than enough’.Lotsis even more informal thana lot:
Lots,a lot,plentywith a noun
When we uselots, a lotorplentywith a noun, we needof:
I’ve gotlots ofplans for today.
There’ll bea lot ofyour friends there.
There’s no need to rush. We’ve gotplenty oftime.
Not:We’ve got plenty time.
Lots,a lot,plentywithout a noun
We usually leave out the noun aftera lot, lotsandplentywhen the noun is obvious. When there is no following noun, we don’t useof:
A:I haven’t got any money
B:Don’t worry, I’ve gotplenty. (plenty of money)
She didn’t bring anything to eat but we’ve gotlotsanyway.
Not: …but we’ve got lots of anyway.
Formal styles:a great deal of,a good deal of,a large number
We prefer to use expressions likea great deal of(+ singular uncountable nouns) ora large number of(+ plural nouns) in more formal styles:
There’sa great deal oftruth in what he said.
From here,a large number ofroads led back to various parts of the city.
See also:
Much,many,a lot of,lots of: quantifiers