voluminous

From Late Latin voluminosus, from volumen, from volvō (“roll, turn about”) +‎ -men (noun-forming suffix). Related to volume.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /vəˈl(j)uː.mɪ.nəs/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /vəˈlu.mə.nəs/

voluminous (comparative more voluminous, superlative most voluminous)

1. Of or pertaining to volume or volumes.
2. Consisting of many folds, coils, or convolutions.
   • 1867, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, chapter VI, in The Gambler, translated by C. J. Hogarth‎^[1]:

     I remember that the Baroness was clad in a voluminous silk dress, pale grey in colour, and adorned with flounces and a crinoline and train.

   • 1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page 211:

     Like the Cuscus of the Moluccas, the Galeopithecus feeds chiefly on leaves, and possesses a very voluminous stomach and long convoluted intestines. The brain is very small, and the animal possesses such remarkable tenacity of life, that it is exceedingly difficult to kill it by any ordinary means.

3. Of great volume, or bulk; large.
   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling:

     Matters of a much more extraordinary kind are to be the subject of this history, or I should grossly mis-spend my time in writing so voluminous a work […]

4. Having written much, or produced many volumes.

   Synonyms: copious, diffuse

   a voluminous writer

• volumous