Gargantua

American  

[gahr-gan-choo-uh] / gɑrˈgæn tʃu ə /

noun

1. an amiable giant and king, noted for his enormous capacity for food and drink, in Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel.

2. (italics) a satirical novel (1534) by Rabelais.

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Gargantua British  

/ ɡɑːˈɡæntjʊə /

noun

1. a gigantic king noted for his great capacity for food and drink, in Rabelais' satire Gargantua and Pantagruel (1534)

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How does gargantua compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• Godzilla vs. Gargantua

Example Sentences

One year, my family gave me the entire Penguin Classics library and some of it is rough sledding, like “Gargantua and Pantagruel.”

From New York Times

All these initial chapters of “Monkey King” exhibit a rollicking exuberance, somewhat like Rabelais’s hyperbolic accounts of the giants Gargantua and Pantagruel.

From Washington Post

One of his most famous lithographs, depicting the “citizen king” Louis-Philippe as the grotesquely rapacious Gargantua, was so inflammatory that it landed the artist in prison for six months.

From Washington Post

It certainly came well after Renaissance writer François Rabelais – who revelled in Lyon’s culinary traditions, depicting the tawdry delights of offal and cheap cuts in Gargantua and Pantagruel.

From The Guardian

At one point, Gargantua rinses his hands in wine, picks his teeth with a pig’s trotter, spreads a green cloth over the table and embarks on an epic spree of card games.

From Washington Post