Big Words

There are some large words in our vocabulary: colossal, titanic, gigantic, tremendous, huge, enormous, vast, immense; the interesting thing, I realise, is that most people cannot differentiate between them. It would be an excellent test to see whether a candidate could create a sentence in which one word would work while another could not.

So what are the differences between these words?

Colossal: From Greek kolossos, first found in Herodotos and used to describe the large Egyptian statues found in temples and as statuary guardians. The Colossus of Rhodes was the 33-metre tall statue of Helios the sun-god which stood near the harbour from which Rhodes derived its income and which was its only defensive weakness. From the mid-18th century, colossal was used to denote something unimaginably vast (in terms of space and size) but not necessarily of human aspect, as had previously been the case.

Titanic: From Greek titan, 'one who strains mightily'; the male plural is titanes and the female plural titanides. They were the youngest (and thus most human-looking) of the children of Heaven (Ouranos) and Earth (Gaia). To call something titanic is to evoke the sense of godlike struggle and use of physical power and energy.

For those who want to know, their names were Ókeanos ('Ocean'), Téthys ('Divine Sea'), Hüperion ('Excellence'), Théia ('Divine Light'), Koios ('Intelligence'), Mnemosüné ('Memory'), Krios ('Horned One' - he seems to have been male lunar power), Phoibé ('Brightness'), Iapetus ('Spearcaster' or 'Piercing One'), Themis ('Natural Justice'), Kronos ('Time Passing'), and Rhea ('Fertile Ground').

Gigantic: From Greek gigas ('enormous one'), one of a member of the monstrous cousins of the gods, the Gigantes. The word carries with it the sense of abnormal size, deformed largeness and brute strength. Some of the Gigantes had multiple limbs and extraordinary senses; Argus was said to have a thousand eyes and the Hekatoncheires had a hundred hands and fifty heads each.

Tremendous: From Latin tremens; literally 'causing one to shake'. Originally had the sense of 'terrifying' or 'awesome'. Now, it just means 'very good, and I'm happy for you'.

Huge: From some distant Indo-European root (see, for example, Old French ahuge), meaning 'very large in scale or stature'. Describes physical size.

Enormous: From Latin e- + -normis; implies something that is beyond the ordinary and completely abnormal. The sense of 'outside nature' (perhaps outrageously so) can be seen in the related word 'enormity'.

Vast: From Latin vastus, 'wasteland'. The words 'vast' and 'waste' are originally the same. 'Vast' denotes an empty space, a void or other featureless expanse. 'Vast knowledge' would mean something like 'a lot of information, within which individual facts are of negligible importance', I suppose.

Immense: From Latin meaning 'not measurable' (cf. 'mensuration', 'commensurate'). The idea is that of something so big that it is beyond conventional measurement.

Some day when you have to describe something beyond normal experience, take a few moments. Think about the kind of excess you are experiencing. And pick the right word to describe it.