gargantuan

adjective, often capitalized gar·gan·tuan \ gär-ˈgan(t)-sh(ə-)wən \

|Updated on: 3 Aug 2018

Examples: gargantuan in a Sentence

Editor's Note: Did You Know?

Definition of gargantuan

: tremendous in size, volume, or degree : gigantic, colossal

gargantuan waterfalls

See gargantuan defined for English-language learners

gargantuan was our Word of the Day on 11/19/2011. Hear the podcast!

Examples of gargantuan in a Sentence

a creature of gargantuan proportions
people seem to be buying ever more gargantuan SUVs these days

Recent Examples of gargantuan from the Web

Up to two-thirds of their length are accounted for by gargantuan feeding tentacles that are tipped with clusters of powerful suckers and deployed against prey and predators alike—and perhaps even their own kin.

— katherine j. wu, Smithsonian, "Operation Calamari: How the Smithsonian Got Its Giant Squids," 21 June 2018
One of the toughest challenges for any autonomous vehicle is coping with the gargantuan pile of data a suite of lidar laser sensors, radars, cameras, and other sensors can produce.

— jack stewart, WIRED, "Mercedes Will Launch Self-Driving Taxis in California Next Year," 10 July 2018
Children stood on bus stop benches — though sometimes the urge to splash in gargantuan puddles proved irresistible.

— zach despart, Houston Chronicle, "Undaunted by downpours, Lindale Park holds July 4 parade," 4 July 2018
Its gargantuan temples and superb civic buildings, almost all in ruins now, contain so much archaeological information scattered over so many acres that, logically, there is no single ideal place from which to view them.

— New York Times, "Take a Photo Here," 27 June 2018
Considering the gargantuan length of the DSM, there are nearly as many ways to be crazy as there are to be alive.

— alice bolin, Longreads, "The Daughter as Detective," 26 June 2018
And rising defaults are testing the country’s gargantuan debt market.

— nathaniel taplin, WSJ, "Has the Big Yuan Short Finally Arrived?," 26 June 2018
For those in the business of mounting these gargantuan tributes to popular entertainment and all things comic books, consternation over the no-shows is overblown.

— lori weisberg, sandiegouniontribune.com, "No Marvel or HBO? No big deal, San Diego Comic-Con observers say," 25 June 2018
The gargantuan, heinous policy that was the Final Solution remained private.

— bonnie azoulay, Marie Claire, "Mira Was Torn From Her Family During The Holocaust. Here's What She Thinks About 2018.," 21 June 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'gargantuan.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Did You Know?

Gargantua is the name of a giant king in François Rabelais's 16th-century satiric novel Gargantua. 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 - in one memorable incident, he inadvertently swallows five pilgrims while eating a salad. The scale of everything connected with Gargantua gave rise to the adjective "gargantuan," which since Shakespeare's time has been used of anything of tremendous size or volume.