vast
Americanadjective
-
vaster,
comparative
-
vastest
superlative
-
of very great area or extent; immense.
the vast reaches of outer space.
- Synonyms:
- stupendous, colossal, gigantic, boundless, measureless
- Antonyms:
- small
-
of very great size or proportions; huge; enormous.
vast piles of rubble left in the wake of the war.
-
very great in number, quantity, amount, etc..
vast sums of money.
-
very great in degree, intensity, etc..
an artisan of vast skill.
noun
adjective
-
unusually large in size, extent, degree, or number; immense
-
(prenominal) (intensifier)
in vast haste
noun
-
poetic immense or boundless space
-
dialect a very great amount or number
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of vast
First recorded in 1565–75, from Latin vastus “empty, immense”
Explanation
If you’re in a boat out on the water and you can’t see any land, then the body of water you’re in is probably vast, or enormous. Things that are described as vast include oceans, seas, the heavens, deserts, and the surface of the moon. Even places that can't be seen or touched, like imaginations, are called vast, because of the endless ideas that come out of them. Someone with a vast imagination is very creative, and a place with a vast landscape is very large. Possibilities are vast, and so are the vocabularies of the world, filling vast volumes.
Vocabulary lists containing vast
Figurative Language in King's "I Have a Dream" Speech (1963)
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"The Ravine," Vocabulary from the short story
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Unit 1: Telling Details
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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.
See Examples For:
What can't be denied is the tournament has generated vast revenue and given English cricket a chance to reach audiences, both local and globally, that might not have been accessible without this radical change.
From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026
U.S. officials say Hengli is one of the biggest players in a vast ecosystem of “teapot” refineries in China that for years have been buying sanctioned oil.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
Now, the streaming giant wants to make it easier for viewers to find them on its vast and eclectic platform.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2026
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, is a vast network of ocean currents that carries warm water northward from the tropics.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 14, 2026
Three towers, each topped with a dome in dusky pink, gave it a look of wit and knowing intelligence, and its vast arched windows with their broad sills gave it solidity and purpose.
From "Impossible Creatures" by Katherine Rundell
The lands whose governance was at stake are vaster than any nation, and it’s possible the consequences of the vote will be felt for eons.
From Salon ● Aug. 19, 2024
Beyond the disappearing local newspapers and women’s vaster choices, I couldn’t hazard a guess about the fate of pageants.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 25, 2023
And while disposing treated water in the ocean is common practice for nuclear plants, critics have pointed out that the amount being released from Fukushima is on an unprecedented, far vaster scale.
From BBC ● Aug. 24, 2023
The temple/palace system in Egypt therefore operated on a much vaster scale than anywhere in Mesopotamia.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
But then, this past September, Susan had transferred from the local school to the vaster, supposedly superior one in Garden City.
From "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote
“Your handshake came over the vastest ocean in the world,” Zhou told Nixon as they rode to the guest quarters that Tuesday.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 20, 2022
Baggage handling should be neither seen nor heard, though it’s the vastest operation of all.
From The New Yorker ● Feb. 1, 2016
Everyone’s strings are being pulled by someone, with, as Voltaire wrote, silence being “the verdict of the vastest mind.”
From New York Times ● Oct. 26, 2010
Today, Ober owns several stores in a South Coast Plaza that is the vastest and most prosperous of all of Orange County’s many temples of shopping.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 17, 1990
Now, the296 vastest of problems, that which contains all others, can be solved in one minute.
From Bouvard and Pécuchet A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life by Gustave Flaubert
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.
