gargantuan
Americanadjective
adjective
Usage
What does gargantuan mean? Gargantuan means extraordinarily large or huge. Some things are more than huge—they’re gargantuan.The word is commonly applied to physical objects whose size makes you marvel with awe. Blue whales are gargantuan. Skyscrapers are gargantuan. The Grand Canyon is gargantuan.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 gargantuan. It is especially associated with things involving food, such as a gargantuan appetite or a gargantuan meal.Similar adjectives are gigantic, giant, colossal, and mammoth. A more formal synonym is massive. More informal synonyms are humongous and ginormous.Something might be considered gargantuan only in comparison to other similar things. For example, an unusually large grapefruit might be described as gargantuan even though it’s not all that big in general—it’s simply gargantuan compared to normal-sized grapefruits. Still, it’s usually used to describe things that are objectively huge, like redwood trees or the planet Jupiter.Gargantuan is sometimes casually used to mean extremely important or significant—much like the figurative use of big and huge. Sometimes, this is negative, as in gargantuan error or gargantuan failure.Example: You don’t realize how gargantuan the sun is until you see an image of a planet next to it for scale.
Etymology
Origin of gargantuan
First recorded in 1585–95; Gargantu(a) + -an
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.
But even they may be stumped when faced with the gargantuan challenge of coming up with a deserving story to encapsulate the unique feat of producing 500 episodes of television.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 24, 2026
Mr. Boyes wonders if any current descendants of Henry—any similarly gargantuan beasts—are still roaming the planet, then sets out to find them, if they exist.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 26, 2026
Genndy Tartakovsky’s “Primal” continues his affinity for pitting his human-sized heroes against gargantuan foes.
From Salon • Feb. 1, 2026
That aims to support households through energy subsidies, even at the risk of inflating Japan's gargantuan national debt, which is expected to exceed 230 percent of GDP in the fiscal year 2025-26.
From Barron's • Jan. 28, 2026
The teeth, head, and entire body of a gargantuan wolf passed within an inch of Jack’s face as Phillip pulled both himself and Jack to the ground and out of harm’s way.
From "Half Upon a Time" by James Riley
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.
