COLOSSAL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does colossal mean? 

• COLOSSAL (adjective)
  The adjective COLOSSAL has 1 sense:

1. so great in size or force or extent as to elicit awe

  Familiarity information: COLOSSAL used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• COLOSSAL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

So great in size or force or extent as to elicit awe

Synonyms:

colossal; prodigious; stupendous

Context example:

stupendous demand

Similar:

big; large (above average in size or number or quantity or magnitude or extent)

Derivation:

colossus (someone or something that is abnormally large and powerful)

 Context examples 

But I had not reckoned upon the colossal task the reefing of three sails meant for one man.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Throwing these into distance, rose, in the foreground, a head,—a colossal head, inclined towards the iceberg, and resting against it.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Though the object is 300 kilometres across, it is currently a colossal four billion kilometres from Earth, making gathering data from its dark, carbon-rich surface a demanding scientific challenge.

(Exiled Asteroid Discovered in Outer Reaches of Solar System, ESO)

The discovery of colossal barocaloric effects in a plastic crystal should bring barocaloric materials to the forefront of research and development to achieve safe environmentally friendly cooling without compromising performance.

(Green material for refrigeration identified, University of Cambridge)

Every two or three days a steamer (another and colossal manifestation of power) came into the bank and stopped for several hours.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Every man’s hand is against us, and yet the interests at stake are colossal.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Challenger's conceit is too colossal to allow him to be really annoyed.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

At night, asleep, he lived with the gods in colossal nightmare; and awake, in the day, he went around like a somnambulist, with absent stare, gazing upon the world he had just discovered.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

A higher rate of galaxy collisions occurred when the universe was young, but these objects are difficult to study directly because they are located at colossal distances.

(Chandra Samples Galactic Goulash, NASA)

A colossal impact with a large asteroid early in Mars' history may have ripped off a chunk of the northern hemisphere and left behind a legacy of metallic elements in the planet's interior.

(Ancient Asteroid Impact Explains Martian Geological Mysteries, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)