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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.
Examples of gargantuan in a Sentence
Dani Di Placido, Forbes.com, 9 Apr. 2025
On top of his composing work, Giacchino is also planning his feature film directorial debut with a remake of Them!, the 1954 black-and-white sci-fi movie about gargantuan man-eating ants.
—Nick Romano, EW.com, 9 Apr. 2025
Tariffs will increase the already gargantuan costs of those efforts, analysts say.
—Billy Perrigo, Time, 8 Apr. 2025
The March 28 event was an especially gargantuan rupture along one specific schism.
—Robin George Andrews, Scientific American, 28 Mar. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Gargantuan.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gargantuan. Accessed 25 Apr. 2025.
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gargantuan
adjective
from Gargantua, a giant with an enormous appetite in books by the French author François Rabelais
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