humongous

or, often, hu·mun·gous

[hyoo-muhng-guhs, -mong-, yoo-]

adjective

Slang.

1. extraordinarily large.

humongous

/ ˌhjuːˈmʌŋɡəs /

adjective

1. exceptionally large; huge

Word History and Origins

Origin of humongous¹

First recorded in 1965–70; expressive coinage, perhaps reflecting huge and monstrous with stress pattern of tremendous

Word History and Origins

Origin of humongous¹

C20: of uncertain origin

Example Sentences

Some hang out under humongous oil palm trees.

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For Bruckner, rising melodic scales, humongous fanfares with trumpets and horns and Wagner tubas galore and repeated patterns over and over by an unstoppable orchestra serve as injections of musical endorphins.

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And then when you want to sell it, you’ve got to pay commissions and the humongous transfer taxes.

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She said the impact of his death would be "absolutely humongous throughout the boxing community".

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How exactly Noel, now 58, and Liam, 52, managed to come back together has yet to be told; one suspects that sufficiently humongous bags of cash had something to do with it.

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Related Words

• colossal 
• elephantine 
• enormous 
• gargantuan 
• ginormous 
• humungous www.thesaurus.com
• immense 

When To Use

What does humongous mean?

Humongous is an informal way of saying extraordinarily large or huge. Some things are more than huge—they’re humongous.A similarly informal synonym is ginormous. Other synonyms include gigantic, enormous, gargantuan, colossal, and mammoth.The word is most often applied to physical objects whose size makes you marvel with awe. Blue whales are humongous. Skyscrapers are humongous. The Grand Canyon is humongous.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 humongous. Like any adjective used to describe something’s size, humongous is often used in a way that’s relative to the situation. Many things described as humongous are objectively huge, like redwood trees or the planet Jupiter. But something might be considered humongous only in comparison to other similar things. For example, an unusually large grapefruit might be described as humongous even though it’s not all that big in general—it’s simply humongous compared to normal-sized grapefruits.Humongous is sometimes casually used to mean extremely important or significant—much like the figurative use of big and huge, as in This is a humongous win for the franchise. Sometimes, this is negative, as in humongous error, humongous failure, or humongous misunderstanding. Because it’s so informal, it’s unlikely to be used in very serious situations.Example: You don’t realize how humongous the sun is until you see an image of a planet next to it for scale.