tremendous
Americanadjective
-
extraordinarily great in size, amount, or intensity.
a tremendous ocean liner; tremendous talent.
-
extraordinary in excellence.
a tremendous movie.
-
dreadful or awful, as in character or effect; exciting fear; frightening; terrifying.
adjective
-
vast; huge
-
informal very exciting or unusual
-
informal (intensifier)
a tremendous help
-
archaic terrible or dreadful
Related Words
See huge.
Other Word Forms
- tremendously adverb
- tremendousness noun
- untremendous adjective
- untremendousness noun
Etymology
Origin of tremendous
First recorded in 1625–35; from Latin tremendus “dreadful, to be shaken by,” equivalent to trem(ere) “to shake, quake” + -endus gerund suffix
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.
"This is a tremendous honor, thank you very much," Anderson said in his acceptance speech.
From Barron's
The people who inherit these houses enjoy tremendous benefits.
“I think that would be a tremendous boost for not just representation, but also you’ll get real specialists.”
From Los Angeles Times
Megacap tech stocks are struggling as investors balk at the massive spending on AI infrastructure, seemingly worried about the possibility that the return on investment might be too weak to justify the tremendous cost.
From MarketWatch
The Unite trade union, which has campaigned for the contract to be approved, said the news represented a "tremendous victory" for workers in the aerospace sector.
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.