Brobdingnagian

English

WOTD – 2 March 2006

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Brobdingnag +‎ -ian, fictional country inhabited by giants in Gulliver's Travels.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˌbɹɒbdɪŋˈnaɡɪən/
    • Audio (Southern England):(file)

Adjective

Brobdingnagian (comparative more Brobdingnagian, superlative most Brobdingnagian)

  1. Of or pertaining to Brobdingnag.
  2. (figurative) Enormous, huge, far larger than is customary for such a thing.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:large
    Antonyms: lilliputian; see also Thesaurus:tiny
    • 1899, I[srael] Zangwill, “The Keeper of Conscience”, in “They that Walk in Darkness”: Ghetto Tragedies, Philadelphia, Pa.: The Jewish Publication Society of America, →OCLC, section VII, page 289:
      When, at the head-centre, the lady demonstrator, armed with a Brobdingnagian whalebone needle, threaded with a bright red cord, executed herringboned fantasias on a canvas frame resembling a violin stand, it all looked easy enough.
    • 1907, Booth Tarkington, “Glamour”, in His Own People:
      The two men followed Madame de Vaurigard into a square hall, hung with tapestries and lit by two candles of a Brobdingnagian species Mellin had heretofore seen only in cathedrals.
    • 1959 July, O. S. Nock, “British Locomotive Practice and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 478:
      The faster trains, such as the "Talisman" and the 9 a.m., load to no more than nine coaches; but while it was certainly great fun to clock the work of the Gresley Pacifics with Brobdingnagian loads the present arrangement, giving a frequent service of lighter trains, is far more convenient to the user.
    • 2010, Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22, Atlantic 2011, page 52:
      Again I stress the matter of sheer scale: the teachers were enormous compared to us and this lent a Brobdingnagian aspect to the scene.
    • 2022 March 22, Dixe Wills, “Aberdeen to Penzance: the spectacular sights of Britain’s longest train journey”, in The Guardian‎[1]:
      Once a week, a train pulls out of Aberdeen station at 08.20 and heads south. There’s no great fanfare, no particular sense of occasion, and the train itself is only five coaches long. However, everything else about this service is Brobdingnagian.
    • 2025 December 3, Oliver Wainwright, “An eco obscenity: Norman Foster’s steroidal new skyscraper is an affront to the New York skyline”, in The Guardian‎[2], →ISSN:
      The Brobdingnagian pile is the work of Foster+Partners, led by the 90-year-old Norman Foster, who is no stranger to penning extravagant bank headquarters.

Derived terms

Noun

Brobdingnagian (plural Brobdingnagians)

  1. A creature from Brobdingnag.
  2. (figuratively) A giant.

Further reading

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