The Merriam-Webster Word of the Day is gargantuan. Read on for what it means, how it’s used, and more.

What It Means

Gargantuan means “very large in size or amount.”

// Bigfoot is said to be a creature of gargantuan proportions.

GARGANTUAN in Context

“We rode a horse-drawn carriage up to the gargantuan Grand Hotel, still embracing its luxury 1887 roots. After a tour of the quirkily colored suites, we settled in for a lunch of local smoked whitefish in the airy restaurant.” — Simon Peter Groebner, The Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota), 14 Aug. 2022

Did You Know?

Gargantua is the name of a giant king in François Rabelais’s 16th-century satiric novel Gargantua, the second part of a five-volume series about the giant and his son Pantagruel. All of the details of Gargantua’s life befit a giant. He rides a colossal mare whose tail switches so violently that it fells the entire forest of Orleans. He has an enormous appetite, such that in one incident he inadvertently swallows five pilgrims while eating a salad. The scale of everything connected with Gargantua led to the adjective gargantuan, which since William Shakespeare’s time has been used for anything of tremendous size or volume.

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