WORD OF THE DAY: IMMENSE

WORD OF THE DAY: IMMENSE

adjective | ih-MENSS

What It Means

Something described as immense is very great in size, degree, or amount.

// They inherited an immense fortune.

// Her movies continue to enjoy immense popularity.

Examples of IMMENSE

“At night, the wind’s howls and whistles provide the soundtrack to the immense vista.” — Alexandra Sanidad, Condé Nast Traveler, 12 June 2024.

Did You Know?

Just how big is something if it is immense? Huge? Colossal? Humongous? Ginormous? Or merely enormous? Immense is often used as a synonym of all of the above and, as such, can simply function as yet another way for English speakers to say “really, really, really big.” But immense is also used in a sense which goes beyond merely really, really, really big to describe something that is so great in size or degree that it transcends ordinary means of measurement. This sense harks back to the original sense of immense for something which is so tremendously big (such as, say, the universe) that it has not been or cannot be measured. This sense reflects the word’s roots in the Latin immensus, from in- (“un-“) and mensus, the past participle of metiri, “to measure.”

Merriam-Webster Dictionary