gargantuan

• Gargantuan

From French Gargantua, a giant with a very large appetite in Rabelais's The Inestimable Life of Gargantua. Rabelais derived Gargantua from the Portuguese and Spanish garganta (“throat”).^[1]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɡɑːˈɡæn.t͡ʃu.ən/
• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ɡɑɹˈɡæn.t͡ʃu.ən/

  • Audio (US):

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• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ɡaːˈɡæn.t͡ʃʉ.ən/

gargantuan (comparative more gargantuan, superlative most gargantuan)

1. Huge; immense; tremendous.

   Synonyms: colossal, enormous, giant, huge, humongous, immense; see also Thesaurus:large

   • 2018 May 4, Tom English, “Steven Gerrard: A 'seriously clever or recklessly stupid' Rangers appointment”, in BBC Sport‎^[1]:

     Some distant observers of the Scottish football scene reckon that all - all! - Gerrard has to do is beat Celtic to become a legend. Even if that was true - and, demonstrably, it is not - then it would be a gargantuan task all on its own.

   • 2019 September 14, Elizabeth Paton, “A Fashion/Food Blowout in the Shadow of Brexit”, in New York Times‎^[2]:

     Or the twinkling dining rooms: all frilly net curtains, pink walls, kaleidoscope-patterned carpets and tiny tables, crammed with teetering piles of hand-painted ceramic crockery (think plates covered in colorful swirls and cocktail mugs shaped like heaving bosoms or ladies’ faces) that showcase gargantuan portions of Italian fare.

   • 2022 April 7, Oliver Milman, “I test-drove the all-electric Hummer. Can it win over America’s EV skeptics?”, in The Guardian‎^[3], →ISSN:

     Boxy and unrefined, the Hummer embodied an outlandishly masculine aesthetic that seemed to almost revel in its gargantuan fuel consumption.

2. (obsolete) Of the giant Gargantua or his appetite.

• gargantuanism
• gargantuanly
• gargantuanness

• “gargantuan”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “gargantuan”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “gargantuan”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “gargantuan”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• “gargantuan”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “gargantuan” in TheFreeDictionary.com, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.: Farlex, Inc., 2003–2024.
• “gargantuan”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.