adjective
-
very large; enormous
a gigantic error
-
Also: gigantesque. of or suitable for giants
Usage
What does gigantic mean? Gigantic means extraordinarily large or huge. Some things are more than huge—they’re gigantic.The word is most often applied to physical objects whose size makes you marvel with awe. Blue whales are gigantic. Skyscrapers are gigantic. The Grand Canyon is gigantic.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 gigantic. Similar adjectives are gargantuan, giant, colossal, and mammoth. A more formal synonym is massive. A more informal synonym is humongous. An even more informal synonym is ginormous (a blend of giant or gigantic and enormous). A much less common variant of gigantic is gigantean.Like any adjective used to describe something’s size, gigantic is often used in a way that’s relative to the situation. Many things described as gigantic are objectively huge, like redwood trees or the planet Jupiter. But something might be considered gigantic only in comparison to other similar things. For example, an unusually large grapefruit might be described as gigantic even though it’s not all that big in general—it’s simply gigantic compared to normal-sized grapefruits.Gigantic is sometimes casually used to mean extremely important or significant—much like the figurative use of big and huge, as in This is a gigantic win for the franchise. Sometimes, this is negative, as in gigantic error, gigantic failure, or gigantic misunderstanding.Example: You don’t realize how gigantic the sun is until you see an image of a planet next to it for scale.
Related Words
Gigantic, colossal, mammoth, monstrous are used of whatever is physically or metaphorically of great magnitude. Gigantic refers to the size of a giant, or to size or scope befitting a giant: a gigantic stalk of corn. Colossal refers to the size of a colossus, to anything huge or vast as befitting a hero or god: a colossal victory. Mammoth refers to the size of the animal of that name and is used especially of anything large and heavy: a mammoth battleship. Monstrous means strikingly unusual or out of the normal in some way, as in size: a monstrous blunder.
Other Word Forms
- gigantically adverb
- giganticness noun
Etymology
Origin of gigantic
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.
BOISE, Idaho—Each afternoon at around 4:30, the earth here shakes from a series of controlled explosions, as engineers blast through basalt bedrock to flatten out the ground underneath a gigantic new semiconductor factory.
The surge in capital spending for things like new gigantic data centers means depreciation expenses will be soaring in the coming years.
Ash Corbett-Collins, chairman of the Campaign for Real Ale, said pubs were facing a "gigantic fight every day to keep their doors open".
From BBC
Despite the coolness of the evening air, her door was open, and gigantic shadows wavered and crept on the strange, pale grass that grew before it.
From Literature
“My house in Seattle, I admit, is gigantic,” he said.
From MarketWatch
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.
