Brobdingnagian
Americanadjective
Etymology
Origin of Brobdingnagian
First recorded in 1725–30; Brobdingnag + -ian
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Downstairs in the exhibition galleries is his related sculpture of a folding card-table and four metal chairs, rendered in not dissimilar Brobdingnagian proportions.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 25, 2025
“It was a Brobdingnagian grip-and-grin if there ever was one.”
From Salon • Jul. 8, 2018
Her bedraggled head nearly scrapes the ceiling of the Bushwick Starr in Brooklyn, where Jason Craig’s play opened on Thursday night, and her scrawny torso is attached to a Brobdingnagian skirt that defies circumnavigation.
From New York Times • Jan. 15, 2016
A porch on the block is home to a massive drinking bird, a Brobdingnagian version of that novelty that sips from a glass.
From Washington Post • Sep. 7, 2015
Given passenger pigeons’ Brobdingnagian appetites for mast and maize, one would expect that Indians would also have hunted them and wanted to keep down their numbers.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
