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Enormous

 - 3 dictionary results

e⋅nor⋅mous

[i-nawr-muhs]
–adjective
1. greatly exceeding the common size, extent, etc.; huge; immense: an enormous fortune.
2. outrageous or atrocious: enormous wickedness; enormous crimes.

Origin:
1525–35; enorm + -ous


e⋅nor⋅mous⋅ly, adverb


1. vast, colossal, gigantic, mammoth, prodigious, stupendous. See huge.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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e·nor·mous   (ĭ-nôr'məs)   
adj.  
  1. Very great in size, extent, number, or degree.

  2. Archaic Very wicked; heinous.


[From Latin ēnormis, unusual, huge, monstrous : ē-, ex-, ex- + norma, norm; see gnō- in Indo-European roots. Sense 2, from Middle English enormious, from Latin ēnormis.]
e·nor'mous·ly adv., e·nor'mous·ness n.
Synonyms: These adjectives describe what is extraordinarily large. Enormous suggests a marked excess beyond the norm in size, amount, or degree: an enormous boulder.
Immense refers to boundless or immeasurable size or extent: immense pleasure.
Huge especially implies greatness of size or capacity: a huge success.
Gigantic refers to size likened to that of a giant: a gigantic redwood tree.
Colossal suggests a hugeness that elicits awe or taxes belief: a colossal ancient temple.
Mammoth is applied to something of unwieldy hugeness: "mammoth stone figures in . . . buckled eighteenth-century pumps, the very soles of which seem mountainously tall" (Cynthia Ozick).
Tremendous suggests awe-inspiring or fearsome size: ate a tremendous meal.
Stupendous implies size that astounds or defies description: "The whole thing was a stupendous, incomprehensible farce" (W. Somerset Maugham).
Gargantuan especially stresses greatness of capacity, as for food or pleasure: a gargantuan appetite.
Vast refers to greatness of extent, size, area, or scope: "Of creatures, how few vast as the whale" (Herman Melville).
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

enormous 
1531, from L. enormis "irregular, extraordinary, very large," from ex- "out of" + norma "rule, norm" (see norm), with Eng. -ous substituted for L. -is. Meaning "extraordinary in size" is attested from 1544; original sense of "outrageous" is more clearly preserved in enormity (1475).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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