adjective
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unusually large; huge; vast
-
without limits; immeasurable
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informal very good; excellent
Synonym Usage
See huge.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of immense
First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English, from Latin immēnsus “huge, boundless, immeasurable,” equivalent to im- “un-” + mēnsus, past participle of mētīrī “to measure”; see im- 2
Explanation
Immense means very large in size, amount, or degree. You might describe the ocean as immense, or your homework load, or the slice of cake your brother took, leaving you a tiny sliver. This word has an immense number of near synonyms: huge, great, enormous, vast, gigantic, colossal, mammoth, copious, tremendous are a few of the more common ones. If you're having immense difficulty deciding which word to use, just plain "very big" might do.
Vocabulary lists containing immense
List 4
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"All Summer in a Day" by Ray Bradbury
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myPerspectives 8.1
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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.
More broadly, the situation shows issues with U.S. export controls on chips, according to Lee, given that China doesn’t necessarily need Nvidia’s physical chips to access their immense computing power.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 31, 2026
"I feel immense pain and immense sadness for the victims and their relatives... I cannot let this pain paralyse me though. We have to find solutions to this problem."
From BBC ● Oct. 30, 2026
Beyond Iran, the discovery provides a broader lesson about how Earth's geological history can become hidden over immense stretches of time.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 28, 2026
It has been facing immense public scrutiny as it has struggled to deal with AI models breaking out of contained spaces and sometimes skirting human instructions.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 27, 2026
The view of the Péligre Dam and its immense lake and the land it had drowned was, so to speak, another mountain to Farmer.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
