ginormous
Americanadjective
adjective
Usage
What does ginormous mean? Ginormous is a very informal way of saying extraordinarily large or huge. Some things are more than huge—they’re ginormous. Ginormous is a blend of giant or gigantic and enormous—all three of which can be used as synonyms. A similarly informal synonym is humongous. Other synonyms include gargantuan, colossal, and mammoth. The word is most often applied to physical objects whose size makes you marvel with awe. Blue whales are ginormous. Skyscrapers are ginormous. The Grand Canyon is ginormous. 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 ginormous. Like any adjective used to describe something’s size, ginormous is often used in a way that’s relative to the situation. Many things described as ginormous are objectively huge, like redwood trees or the planet Jupiter. But something might be considered ginormous only in comparison to other similar things. For example, an unusually large grapefruit might be described as ginormous even though it’s not all that big in general—it’s simply ginormous compared to normal-sized grapefruits. Ginormous is sometimes casually used to mean extremely important or significant—much like the figurative use of big and huge, as in This is a ginormous win for the franchise. Sometimes, this is negative, as in ginormous error, ginormous failure, or ginormous misunderstanding. Because it’s so informal, it’s unlikely to be used in very serious situations. Example: You don’t realize how ginormous the sun is until you see an image of a planet next to it for scale.
Etymology
Origin of ginormous
First recorded in 1940–45; gi(gantic) + (e)normous
Explanation
Something ginormous is really huge. Elephants are ginormous, and so is the planet Jupiter. Always put the lid on the blender when in use, or you’ll end up with a ginormous mess! English contains a lot of portmanteau words — words made by blending together two other words or their parts. Ginormous, if you haven’t already guessed, was made by joining the beginning of gigantic to the end of enormous, combining two synonyms to emphasize how huge something is. Know which other words are made by blending? Cosplay, sitcom, and infomercial are a few. You can probably think of others!
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.
SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic, and other ginormous unicorns are likely to go public later this year.
From Barron's • Jan. 30, 2026
In a different sport, one where the wealth gap between the richest franchises and their small-market counterparts wasn’t a ginormous chasm, this would be a very busy winter for the Detroit Tigers.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 10, 2025
Altman—whose once-tight relationship with Microsoft is reportedly fraying—tweeted that “more compute is more important now than ever before,” implying that he and Microsoft both want those ginormous data centers to keep humming.
From Slate • Jan. 31, 2025
The government has a ginormous majority in the House of Commons, but they have a different audience on the red benches at the other end of the Palace of Westminster.
From BBC • Jul. 13, 2024
The kitchen that turned out all that food was ginormous.
From "The Smartest Kid in the Universe" by Chris Grabenstein
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.
