tremendous
[trih-men-duh s]
- extraordinarily great in size, amount, or intensity: a tremendous ocean liner; tremendous talent.
- extraordinary in excellence: a tremendous movie.
- dreadful or awful, as in character or effect; exciting fear; frightening; terrifying.
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Origin of tremendous
1625–35; < Latin tremendus dreadful, to be shaken by, equivalent to trem(ere) to shake, quake + -endus gerund suffix
Synonyms
See more synonyms for tremendous on Thesaurus.com1. See huge.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for tremendous
Contemporary Examples
Great American leaders have long contributed profound thoughts of tremendous consequence to the public discourse.
“When I first met her I felt this tremendous surge of power,” he explained.
“The rape question was a tremendous blunder,” Doar later observed.
Honoring The Late John Doar, A Nearly Forgotten Hero Of The Civil Rights EraGary May
November 15, 2014
This is a tremendous find, not just because he discovered all these first veterans of our first war in a vacant lot.
The Good Lie was filmed at a time of tremendous promise for South Sudan.
Historical Examples
One cannot stand in this presence and be unmindful of the tremendous responsibility.
The picture, with all its tremendous coloring, was finished.
The Prophetic Pictures (From "Twice Told Tales")Nathaniel Hawthorne
To the electors of Frome he spoke of the tremendous responsibility of the Ministers.
The Grand Old ManRichard B. Cook
Undoubtedly he was possessed of a tremendous regard for the girl Allis.
ThoroughbredsW. A. Fraser
We had a tremendous passage home--one of the worst I ever experienced at sea.
Ned MyersJames Fenimore Cooper
tremendous
- vast; huge
- informal very exciting or unusual
- informal (intensifier)a tremendous help
- archaic terrible or dreadful
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Word Origin
C17: from Latin tremendus terrible, literally: that is to be trembled at, from tremere to quake
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for tremendous
adj.
1630s, "awful, dreadful, terrible," from Latin tremendus "fearful, terrible," literally "to be trembled at," gerundive form of tremere "to tremble" (see tremble). Hyperbolic or intensive sense of "extraordinarily great or good, immense" is attested from 1812, paralleling semantic changes in terrific, terribly, awfully, etc.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper