big
/bɪɡ/ adjective, adverb, noun, verb
Forms bigger biggest bigs bigging bigged bigg bygg bygge
- adjective Of great size, large. “Elephants are big animals, and they eat a lot.”
- adjective (informal) Fat. “Gosh, she is big!”
- adjective (sometimes figurative) Large with young; pregnant; swelling; ready to give birth or produce. “She was big with child.”
- adjective Specifically, big-breasted.
- adjective Having a large penis. “I'm the shortest man on the team but in the gym shower everyone can see that I'm also the biggest.”
- adjective Having large muscles, especially visible ones such as the chest and arm muscles. “I've been lifting weights for a full year now, but I'm finally getting big.”
- adjective (informal) Adult; (of a child) older. “Kids should get help from big people if they want to use the kitchen.”
- adjective (informal, slang, rare, of someone's age) Old, mature. Used to imply that someone is too old for something, or acting immaturely.
- adverb In a loud manner.
- adverb In a boasting manner. “He's always talking big, but he never delivers.”
- adverb In a large amount or to a large extent. “He won big betting on the croquet championship.”
- adverb (informal) (modifying a preposition) “I've always been big into sport, but I'm especially big into football.”
- adverb On a large scale, expansively. “You've got to think big to succeed at Amalgamated Plumbing.”
- adverb (colloquial) Hard; with great force. “He hit him big and the guy just crumpled.”
- noun Someone or something that is large in stature.
- noun An important or powerful person; a celebrity; a big name.
- noun (in the plural) The big leagues, big time.
- noun (university slang) An initiated member of a sorority or fraternity who acts as a mentor to a new member (the little).
- noun (ageplay) The participant in age roleplay who acts out the older role.
- verb (transitive) To inhabit; occupy.
Synonyms
ample huge large sizeable stour jumbo massive exceeding cosmic bodacious broad commodious considerable expansive good-sized full generous giant grand great bad prominent heavy boastful braggart bragging braggy cock-a-hoop crowing self-aggrandizing
Antonyms
Etymology
Inherited from Northern Middle English big, bigge (“powerful, strong”), possibly from a dialect of Old Norse. Ultimately perhaps a derivative of Proto-Germanic *bugja- (“swollen up, thick”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰew-, *bu- (“to swell”), in which case big would be related to bogey, bugbear, and bug.
Compare dialectal Norwegian bugge (“great man”), Low German Bögge, Boggelmann.
From Middle English biggen, byggen, from Old Norse byggja, byggva (“to build, dwell in, inhabit”), a secondary form of Old Norse búa (“to dwell”), related to Old English būan (“to dwell”). Cognate with Danish bygge, Swedish bygga.
From Middle English byge, from Old Norse bygg (“barley, probably Hordeum vulgare, common barley”), from Proto-Germanic *bewwuz (“crop, barley”). Cognate with Old English bēow (“barley”).
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Having largeness of size; of much bulk or magnitude; of great size; large. "He's too big to go in there." Shak.
- adjective Great with young; pregnant; swelling; ready to give birth or produce; --often figuratively.
- noun Barley, especially the hardy four-rowed kind.
- verb To build. [Scot. & North of Eng. Dial.] Sir W. Scott.
Etymology [Perh. from Celtic; cf. W. beichiog, beichiawg, pregnant, with child, fr. baich burden, Arm. beac'h; or cf. OE. bygly, Icel. biggiligr, (properly) habitable; (then) magnigicent, excellent, fr. OE. biggen, Icel. byggja, to dwell, build, akin to E. be.]
Etymology [OE. bif, bigge; akin to Icel. bygg, Dan. byg, Sw. bjugg.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “big”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details