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gargantuan
[gahr-gan-choo-uhn]
adjective
gigantic; enormous; colossal.
a gargantuan task.
Synonyms: , , , ,
gargantuan
/ ɡɑːˈɡæԳʊə /
adjective
(sometimes capital) huge; enormous
Usage
Word History and Origins
Origin of gargantuan1
Example Sentences
Everyone thought this defending champion Dodger team of gargantuan expectations had finally and permanently arrived.
Though the deals appear gargantuan, experts say financial realities will cut them down to size.
In a stunning reversal, that gargantuan mammal had caught me.
With a gargantuan reception of 27.3 million viewers for its two-episode premiere, it was no surprise that ABC renewed the show for an 11th season three days later.
The 7-foot-3 center who could become a gargantuan story for his next team is planning to play elsewhere after two seasons as a Bruin.
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Related Words
When To Use
Gargantuan means extraordinarily large or huge. Some things are more than huge—they’re gargantuan.The word is commonly applied to physical objects whose size makes you marvel with awe. Blue whales are gargantuan. Skyscrapers are gargantuan. The Grand Canyon is gargantuan.But it can also be applied to intangible things, as in With all the champagne and caviar that we ordered, the bill for dinner is going to be gargantuan. It is especially associated with things involving food, such as a gargantuan appetite or a gargantuan meal.Similar adjectives are gigantic, giant, colossal, and mammoth. A more formal synonym is massive. More informal synonyms are humongous and ginormous.Something might be considered gargantuan only in comparison to other similar things. For example, an unusually large grapefruit might be described as gargantuan even though it’s not all that big in general—it’s simply gargantuan compared to normal-sized grapefruits. Still, it’s usually used to describe things that are objectively huge, like redwood trees or the planet Jupiter.Gargantuan is sometimes casually used to mean extremely important or significant—much like the figurative use of big and huge. Sometimes, this is negative, as in gargantuan error or gargantuan failure.Example: You don’t realize how gargantuan the sun is until you see an image of a planet next to it for scale.
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