gigantic

American  

[jahy-gan-tik, ji-] / dʒaɪˈgæn tɪk, dʒɪ- /

adjective

1. very large; huge.

   a gigantic statue.

   Synonyms:

   titanic, cyclopean, herculean, prodigious, immense, enormous

   Antonyms:

   tiny

2. of, like, or befitting a giant.

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gigantic British  

/ dʒaɪˈɡæntɪk /

adjective

1. very large; enormous

   a gigantic error

2. Also: gigantesque.  of or suitable for giants

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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.

Synonym Usage

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

• giganticness
  noun
• gigantically
  adverb

Etymology

Origin of gigantic

1605–15; from Latin gigant- giant + -ic

Explanation

Gigantic is an adjective used to describe something that's really big, as though it were made for a giant. You might call a skyscraper a gigantic building, especially if it towers over other buildings nearby. As you might imagine, gigantic is derived from the noun giant. Giants were mythical beings that were said to be of immense size and strength. Literally, gigantic means “of or relating to a giant,” but in practice gigantic is widely used to describe almost anything as especially big. If an article of clothing is way too big for you, you could call it gigantic. You might also complain of having a gigantic headache because someone is being a gigantic pain.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

gigantic

In New York City's Times Square, one of the busiest pedestrian intersections in the world, photographs of Wang Wang come up on a gigantic digital screen every 35 minutes.

From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026

“It’s like a gigantic battleship with a lot of barnacles that have kind of attached themselves to the ship over the years,” Jeremy Stein, a Harvard economist and former Fed governor, said of the bureaucracy.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026

In southwestern France near the city of Perpignan, 700 hundred firefighters backed by special aircraft battled to control a "gigantic" blaze spreading in a hard-to-reach remote area, with more than 10,000 local residents evacuated.

From Barron's ● Jul. 6, 2026

There were green soccer jerseys, sure, but men wore colorful Oaxacan shirts, ponchos and gigantic sombreros.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 6, 2026

As she waves her arms in excitement, some of the mail falls out of the pile, and a gigantic Bed Bath and Beyond coupon lands near my foot.

From "Zara’s Rules for Record-Breaking Fun" by Hena Khan

Related Words

• behemothic
• colossal
• enormous
• gargantuan
• giant
• huge
• immense
• jumbo
• mammoth
• massive
• monstrous
• tremendous
• vast