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enormous
5 dictionary results for: enormous
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source - Share This
e·nor·mous       [i-nawr-muhs] Pronunciation Key
–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]

—Related forms
e·nor·mous·ly, adverb

—Synonyms 1. vast, colossal, gigantic, mammoth, prodigious, stupendous. See huge.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
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American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
e·nor·mous       (ĭ-nôr'məs)  Pronunciation Key 
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).

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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Online Etymology Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
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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WordNet - Cite This Source - Share This
enormous

adjective
extraordinarily large in size or extent or amount or power or degree; "an enormous boulder"; "enormous expenses"; "tremendous sweeping plains"; "a tremendous fact in human experience; that a whole civilization should be dependent on technology"- Walter Lippman; "a plane took off with a tremendous noise" 

WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.
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Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This

Enormous

E*nor"mous\, a. [L. enormis enormous, out of rule; e out + norma rule: cf. F. ['e]norme. See Normal.]

1. Exceeding the usual rule, norm, or measure; out of due proportion; inordinate; abnormal. "Enormous bliss." --Milton. "This enormous state." --Shak. "The hoop's enormous size." --Jenyns.

Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait. --Milton.

2. Exceedingly wicked; outrageous; atrocious; monstrous; as, an enormous crime.

That detestable profession of a life so enormous. --Bale.

Syn: Huge; vast; immoderate; immense; excessive; prodigious; monstrous.

Usage: -- Enormous, Immense, Excessive. We speak of a thing as enormous when it overpasses its ordinary law of existence or far exceeds its proper average or standard, and becomes -- so to speak -- abnormal in its magnitude, degree, etc.; as, a man of enormous strength; a deed of enormous wickedness. Immense expresses somewhat indefinitely an immeasurable quantity or extent. Excessive is applied to what is beyond a just measure or amount, and is always used in an evil; as, enormous size; an enormous crime; an immense expenditure; the expanse of ocean is immense. "Excessive levity and indulgence are ultimately excessive rigor." --V. Knox. "Complaisance becomes servitude when it is excessive." --La Rochefoucauld (Trans).

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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