humongous

American  

[hyoo-muhng-guhs, -mong-, yoo-] / hjuˈmʌŋ gəs, -ˈmɒŋ-, ju- /

or, often, humungous

adjective

Slang.

1. extraordinarily large.

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humongous British  

/ ˌhjuːˈmʌŋɡəs /

adjective

1. exceptionally large; huge

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Usage

What does humongous mean? Humongous is an informal way of saying extraordinarily large or huge. Some things are more than huge—they’re humongous. A similarly informal synonym is ginormous. Other synonyms include gigantic, enormous, gargantuan, colossal, and mammoth. The word is most often applied to physical objects whose size makes you marvel with awe. Blue whales are humongous. Skyscrapers are humongous. The Grand Canyon is humongous. 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 humongous. Like any adjective used to describe something’s size, humongous is often used in a way that’s relative to the situation. Many things described as humongous are objectively huge, like redwood trees or the planet Jupiter. But something might be considered humongous only in comparison to other similar things. For example, an unusually large grapefruit might be described as humongous even though it’s not all that big in general—it’s simply humongous compared to normal-sized grapefruits. Humongous is sometimes casually used to mean extremely important or significant—much like the figurative use of big and huge, as in This is a humongous win for the franchise. Sometimes, this is negative, as in humongous error, humongous failure, or humongous misunderstanding. Because it’s so informal, it’s unlikely to be used in very serious situations. Example: You don’t realize how humongous the sun is until you see an image of a planet next to it for scale.

Etymology

Origin of humongous

First recorded in 1965–70; expressive coinage, perhaps reflecting huge and monstrous with stress pattern of tremendous

Explanation

Something humongous is really, really big. If you experiment with greenhouses, fertilization, and grow lights, you can grow a humongous pumpkin. Humongous is an American slang word coined in the 1970s, copying more proper words like tremendous or enormous. If you want to describe something that's so big it's hard to really measure, like the national debt or the number of cells in your body, you can use the word humongous. Just don't use it in a formal paper.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

humongous

Our collective image of a humongous horse on wheels came down from centuries’ worth of artists’ interpretations: A Greek vase from 675 BCE.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026

Now there’s nothing to be done about it, including the fact that he plans to put a humongous monstrosity in its place — a large-scale ballroom that will dwarf the People’s House.

From Salon ● Mar. 29, 2026

For Bruckner, rising melodic scales, humongous fanfares with trumpets and horns and Wagner tubas galore and repeated patterns over and over by an unstoppable orchestra serve as injections of musical endorphins.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 11, 2025

"The government needs to have a look at this because it doesn't just affect me, there's a humongous amount of people that it's going to affect."

From BBC ● Aug. 3, 2025

Another Clock Watcher rode a humongous, raging Time Suck straight at Sheed and Petey.

From "The Last Last-Day-of-Summer" by Lamar Giles

Related Words

• colossal
• elephantine
• enormous
• gargantuan
• ginormous
• humungous
• immense