gargantuan \gahr-GAN-choo-uhn\, adjective:
enormous; gigantic; huge
On a marshy peninsula 50 miles from this Red Sea port, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is staking $12.5 billion on a gargantuan bid to catch up with the West in science and technology.
-- Thanassis Cambanis, New York Times, 2007-10-26
But keeping them there, with the night shifts and the erratic parental schedules, was a gargantuan effort.
-- Allison Sherry, Denver Post, 2006-12-18
by 1571, from Gargantua, large-mouthed giant in Rabelais' novels, supposedly from Spanish/Portuguese garganta "gullet, throat," which is from the same imitative root as gargle
1 comment:
In French, with the same meaning and from the same origin (a giant in Rabelais's novel), we can use either "gargantuesque" from Gargantua (gargantuan) or "pantagruélique" from Pantagruel (pantagruelian). It seems that in Englih those two adjectives have a different meaning. Am I right?
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