tremendous
/trɪˈmɛndəs
/adjective
1Very great in amount, scale, or intensity: Penny put in a tremendous amount of time there was a tremendous explosion...
- The helicopter would display their logo providing a tremendous amount of publicity across a vast area.
- I've met a lot of other people who like it, but I've also heard a tremendous amount of banter about people who don't.
- The cat can, as you've been experiencing in your country, cause a tremendous amount of damage.
Synonyms
very great, huge, enormous, immense, colossal, massive, prodigious, stupendous, monumental, mammoth, vast, gigantic, giant, mighty, epic, monstrous, titanic, cosmic, towering, king-sized, king-size, gargantuan, Herculean, Brobdingnagian;
substantial
informal whopping, whopping great, thumping, thumping great, astronomical, astronomic, mega, monster, humongous, jumbo, hulking, bumper
British informal whacking, whacking great, ginormous
very loud, deafening, ear-splitting, ear-piercing, booming, thundering, thunderous, roaring, resounding, crashing
1.1 informal Extremely good or impressive; excellent: the crew did a tremendous job...
- I can imagine she is doing a tremendous job in what must be indescribable circumstances.
- The National Health Service in York does a tremendous job for many people.
- We are trying to support the tremendous quality job that they are doing.
Synonyms
excellent, wonderful, marvellous, magnificent, superb, splendid, glorious, sublime, lovely, delightful, first-class, first-rate, outstanding;
consummate, perfect
informal super, great, smashing, amazing, amazeballs, fantastic, terrific, phenomenal, sensational, incredible, heavenly, stellar, gorgeous, dreamy, grand, fabulous, fab, fabby, fantabulous, awesome, magic, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, ace, crack, cool, mean, bad, wicked, mega, crucial, mind-blowing, far out, A1, sound, out of this world, marvy, spanking, dope, def, phat
British informal brilliant, brill, bosting
North American informal peachy, dandy, jim-dandy, neat, badass, boss, radical, rad, boffo, bully, bitching, bodacious, crackerjack
US informal on fleek
Australian/New Zealand informal beaut, bonzer
South African informal kif, lank
informal, dated groovy, divine
British informal, dated capital, champion, wizard, corking, ripping, cracking, spiffing, top-hole, topping, beezer
North American informal, dated swell, keen
vulgar slang shit-hot
archaic goodly
2 archaic Inspiring awe or dread.
Derivatives
tremendousness
- He towered over our tent and blotted out the sun with his freakishly large tremendousness.
- Whatever the thing could have been, my impression is of tremendousness, or of bulk many times that of all meteorites in all museums combined: also of relative slowness, or of long warning of approach.
- ‘It was just so hard to understand the tremendousness of what was happening.’
Origin
Mid 17th century: from Latin tremendus (gerundive of tremere 'tremble') + -ous.
Tremendous goes back to Latin tremere ‘to tremble’, and had the original sense of something that makes you tremble (Middle English). Trepidation (Late Middle English) and intrepid (late 17th century) are from the related trepidare ‘tremble’.
Rhymes
- time reversal symmetry
- time-reverse
- time-reversed
- time-ridden
- timerity
- times
- down to the wire
- down town
- downtown
- downtowner
- downtrend
- downtrodden
- down trou
- downturn
- down under
- downvote
- downward
- downward dog
- downward-facing dog
- downwardly
- downwardly mobile
- downward-mobile
- downward mobility
- downwards
- downwarp