colossal
Americanadjective
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extraordinarily great in size, extent, or degree; gigantic; huge.
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of or resembling a colossus.
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(initial capital letter) noting or pertaining to a classical order whose columns or pilasters span two or more stories of a building.
adjective
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of immense size; huge; gigantic
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(in figure sculpture) approximately twice life-size Compare heroic
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Also: giant. architect of or relating to the order of columns and pilasters that extend more than one storey in a façade
Usage
What does colossal mean? Colossal describes something as being very large in size, degree, or amount, as in I went to a colossal shopping mall that stretched for a mile. If something is colossal, it is enormous, gigantic, or massive.Colossal can also be used to describe a large degree of something, that is, a large amount or a large extent, like a colossal amount of boxes or a colossal advantage in the playoffs.Less commonly, colossal describes something as resembling a colossus, which is a very large statue, as in The large man was so colossal that he blocked the entire doorway.Example: Tyrannosaurus rex was a colossal dinosaur that towered over many of the smaller animals.
Related Words
See gigantic.
Other Word Forms
- colossality noun
- colossally adverb
- supercolossal adjective
- supercolossally adverb
Etymology
Origin of colossal
First recorded in 1705–15; coloss(us) + -al 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Asian markets sank Thursday after another sell-off on Wall Street as worries over the tech sector's colossal spending on artificial intelligence continued to dog investor sentiment.
From Barron's
To meet the demand, Oracle is building new, colossal data-center complexes across the country.
It’s the hardest to achieve in terms of engineering, requiring colossal lightweight structures, conversion losses, beam safety/regulation, and grid integration on the ground, according to Tuttle.
From MarketWatch
The final room highlights a single, colossal Reclining Vishnu statue from the second half of the 11th century.
For any new manager coming in, it's a colossal baptism of fire to try and navigate your way through.
From BBC
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
