GARGANTUAN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does gargantuan mean? 

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

1. of great mass; huge and bulky

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• GARGANTUAN (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Of great mass; huge and bulky

Synonyms:

elephantine; gargantuan; giant; jumbo

Context example:

jumbo shrimp

Similar:

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

Derivation:

Gargantua (a voracious giant in Francois Rabelais' book of the same name)

 Context examples 

Unlike the tiny, sunspot blemishes on our middle-aged sun, starspots can be gargantuan in stars as young as those in the Pleiades because stellar youth is associated with greater turbulence and magnetic activity.

(Kepler Watches Stellar Dancers in the Pleiades Cluster, NASA)

A mere one billion light-years away in the nearby galaxy cluster known as Abell 2597, there lies a gargantuan galactic fountain.

(ALMA and MUSE Detect Galactic Fountain, ESO)

In 2011, Sargassum populations started to explode in places it hadn’t been before, like the central Atlantic Ocean, and then it arrived in gargantuan gobs that suffocated shorelines and introduced a new nuisance for local environments and economies.

(Satellites Find Biggest Seaweed Bloom in the World, NASA)

The ALMA and APEX telescopes have peered deep into space — back to the time when the Universe was one tenth of its current age — and witnessed the beginnings of gargantuan cosmic pileups: the impending collisions of young, starburst galaxies.

(Ancient Galaxy Megamergers, ESO)