account for (someone or something)

phrasal verb

accounted for (someone or something); accounting for (someone or something); accounts for (someone or something)

1

: to show what happened to (someone or something) : know where (something or someone) is

We have to account for the time we spend on each activity.

The government couldn't account for millions of dollars of the taxpayers' money.

Is everyone accounted for?

2

: to destroy or kill (someone or something)

Enemy fighters have accounted for most of our bombers, Sir.

3

chiefly British : to defeat or beat (someone or something)

We accounted for the challengers 3–2.

Examples of account for (someone or something) in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

International students account for 71% of the full-time graduate students in computer and information sciences and 73% of the full-time graduate students in electrical and computer engineering at U.S. universities and are prominent in work on artificial intelligence. —Stuart Anderson, Forbes.com, 22 May 2025

This number is only set to get bigger: Data centers’ electricity consumption has grown four times faster than overall consumption in recent years, while the amount of investment in data centers has nearly doubled since 2022, driven largely by massive expansions to account for new AI capacity. —Molly Taft, Wired News, 22 May 2025

Some third-party sellers, which account for roughly 60% of products sold, have increased prices on certain items, while others have opted to keep prices steady, Jassy said Wednesday. —Annie Palmer, CNBC, 21 May 2025

Non-linear revenues now account for 39% of Channel 4’s total. —Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 21 May 2025