great
English Edit
Etymology Edit
From Middle English greet (“great, large”), from Old English grēat (“big, thick, coarse, massive”), from Proto-West Germanic *graut, from Proto-Germanic *grautaz (“big in size, coarse, coarse grained”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrewd-, *gʰer- (“to rub, grind, remove”).
Cognate with Scots great (“coarse in grain or texture, thick, great”), West Frisian grut (“large, great”), Dutch groot (“large, stour”), German groß (“large”), Old English grēot (“earth, sand, grit”). Related to grit. Doublet of gross.
Pronunciation Edit
- enPR: grāt
- (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA(key): /ˈɡɹeɪt/
Audio (US) (file) - (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA(key): /ˈɡɹæɪt/
- Homophone: grate
- Rhymes: -eɪt
- (obselete)
- (1700s) enPR: grīt, IPA(key): /ɡɹiːt/[1]
- (Early Modern English, 1500s–1600s) IPA(key): /ɡɹɛːt/,[2] /ɡɹet/[2]
Adjective Edit
great (comparative greater, superlative greatest)
- (augmentative) Large, senior (high-ranking), intense, extreme, or exceptional
- Relatively large in scale, size, extent, number (i.e. having many parts or members) or duration (i.e. relatively long); very big.
- A great storm is approaching our shores.
- a great assembly
- a great wait
- 1922, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest[2]:
- “[…] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people that they don't know at all well. You know. The kind that have mottoes like // Here's rattling good luck and roaring good cheer, / With lashings of food and great hogsheads of beer. […]”
- 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 7, in The China Governess[3]:
- ‘Children crawled over each other like little grey worms in the gutters,’ he said. ‘The only red things about them were their buttocks and they were raw. Their faces looked as if snails had slimed on them and their mothers were like great sick beasts whose byres had never been cleared. […]’
- 2013 July 19, Timothy Garton Ash, “Where Dr Pangloss meets Machiavelli”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 18:
- Hidden behind thickets of acronyms and gorse bushes of detail, a new great game is under way across the globe. Some call it geoeconomics, but it's geopolitics too. The current power play consists of an extraordinary range of countries simultaneously sitting down to negotiate big free trade and investment agreements.
- Title referring to an important leader.
- Alexander the Great
- Of larger size or more importance than others of its kind.
- the great auk
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Daniel 2:48:
- So the King made Daniel a great man […]
- c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv]:
- He doth object I am too great of birth.
- (informal) Very good; excellent; wonderful; fantastic. [from 1848]
- Dinner was great.
- 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter V, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
- He was thinking; but the glory of the song, the swell from the great organ, the clustered lights, […], the height and vastness of this noble fane, its antiquity and its strength—all these things seemed to have their part as causes of the thrilling emotion that accompanied his thoughts.
- (informal, Britain) Intensifying a word or expression, used in mild oaths.
- a dirty great smack in the face
- Great Scott!
- Relatively large in scale, size, extent, number (i.e. having many parts or members) or duration (i.e. relatively long); very big.
- (qualifying nouns of family relationship) Involving more generations than the qualified word implies — as many extra generations as repetitions of the word great (from 1510s). [see Derived terms]
- great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather, great-great-great-grandfather
- (obsolete, postpositive, followed by 'with') Pregnant; large with young; full of.
- great with child
- great with hope
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Psalms 73:71:
- the ewes great with young
- (obsolete, except with 'friend' and similar words such as 'mate','buddy') Intimate; familiar.
- 1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Followers and Friends”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC:
- those that are so great with him
- Extreme or more than usual.
- great worry
- Of significant importance or consequence; important.
- a great decision
- 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
- “We are engaged in a great work, a treatise on our river fortifications, perhaps? But since when did army officers afford the luxury of amanuenses in this simple republic?”
- 1951 March, John W. Cline, “The Future of Medicine”, in Northwest Medicine, volume 50, number 3, Portland, Ore.: Northwest Medical Publishing Association, page 165:
- The first half of this century has been referred to as the golden age of medicine. To me it seems more probable that we are on the threshold of a much greater age.
- (applied to actions, thoughts and feelings) Arising from or possessing idealism; admirable; superior; commanding; heroic; illustrious; eminent.
- a great deed
- a great nature
- a great history
- Impressive or striking.
- a great show of wealth
- Much in use; favoured.
- Poetry was a great convention of the Romantic era.
- (applied to persons) Endowed with extraordinary powers; of exceptional talents or achievements; uncommonly gifted; able to accomplish vast results; remarkable; strong; powerful; mighty; noble.
- a great hero, scholar, genius, philosopher, writer etc.
- Doing or exemplifying (a characteristic or pursuit) on a large scale; active or enthusiastic.
- What a great buffoon!
- He's not a great one for reading.
- a great walker
- (often followed by 'at') Skilful or adroit.
- a great carpenter
- You are great at singing.
Usage notes Edit
Moderating adverbs such as fairly, somewhat, etc. tend not to be used with great. Some intensifiers can be used with some senses of great; for example, a very great amount, a very great man, the party was really great, though not *the party was very great.
Synonyms Edit
- (augmentative): grand, super-, supra-, hyper-, ultra-, uber-, macro-, arch-, over-, mega-, giga-, -zilla
- See also Thesaurus:large
- See also Thesaurus:excellent
- gr8, grt (Internet slang, text messaging)
Antonyms Edit
Derived terms Edit
- a great many
- behind every great man is a great woman
- behind every great man there stands a woman
- child-great
- death is the great leveller
- double great primer
- go great guns
- go to great lengths
- great albatross
- Great Alne
- great antshrike
- great ape
- Great Assize
- great auk
- great aunt
- great-aunt
- Great Aycliffe
- Great Ayton
- great balls of fire
- Great Bardfield
- Great Barr
- Great Barrier Island
- Great Barrier Reef
- great bass
- great bass recorder
- Great Bavington
- Great Bedwyn
- Great Belt
- Great Bend
- Great Bentley
- Great Bernera
- great beyond
- great big
- great bittern
- great black-backed gull
- great blue heron
- great blue lobelia
- Great Bookham
- Great Bourton
- Great Bowden
- Great Bridge
- Great Bridgeford
- Great Britain
- Great Broughton
- great brown kingfisher
- great bustard
- great Caesar's ghost
- great cardiac vein
- great cassino
- great cat
- great cerebral vein
- great chain of being
- great chamber
- Great Chart
- Great Chesterford
- great circle
- great-circle arc
- great circle arc
- great circle route
- greatcoat
- great comet
- great conjunction
- great cormorant
- great crest
- great crested grebe
- great crested newt
- great cry and little wool
- great cubicuboctahedron
- Great Dane
- great deal
- great dodecahedron
- Great Driffield
- great eggfly
- great egret
- Great Elm
- Great Falls
- Great Feasts
- great fee
- Great Glen
- great-go
- great go
- great-grand
- great-grandaunt
- great-grandchild
- great grandchild
- great granddaughter, great-granddaughter
- great grandfather, great-grandfather
- great-grandfather-in-law
- great-grandkid
- great grandkid
- great-grandma
- great grandmaster
- great grandmother, great-grandmother
- great grand multipara
- great grand multiparity
- great grand multiparous
- great-grandnephew
- great-grandniece
- great-grandpa
- great grandparent
- great-grandparent
- great-grandparenthood
- great grandson, great-grandson
- great-granduncle
- great-great-grandchild
- great great grandchild
- great great granddaughter
- great-great-granddaughter
- great-great-grandfather
- great great grandfather
- great-great-grandma
- great-great-grandmother
- great great grandmother
- great great grandparent
- great-great-grandparent
- great-great-grandson
- great great grandson
- great-great-great-grandfather
- great great great grandfather
- great great great grandmother
- great-great-great-grandmother
- great-great-nephew
- great green macaw
- great grey owl
- great grey shrike
- great gross
- great gun
- great hall
- Great Harrowden
- great haste makes great waste
- Great Haywood
- great-hearted
- great-heartedness
- great heaume
- great heavens
- Great Heck
- great helm
- great horned owl
- great horsetail
- Great Horton
- Great Hours
- great house
- great hundred
- great icosahedron
- great icosihemidodecahedron
- great imitator
- great job
- Great Kimble
- great knot
- great laurel
- Great Longstone
- greatly
- Great Malvern
- great man theory
- great martyr
- great martyress
- great minds
- great minds think alike
- Great Missenden
- great mullein
- Great Munden
- Great Musgrave
- great-nephew
- great-nephew
- Great Ness
- greatness
- great-niece
- great-niece
- great northern diver
- great northern loon
- great northern prawn
- Great North Road
- great oaks from little acorns grow
- great octave
- great office of state
- great one
- Great Orme
- Great Ouse
- great outdoors
- Great Paxton
- Great Ponton
- great power
- great pox
- great-pox
- great primer
- great ramshorn
- great reed warbler
- great replacement theory
- great reset
- great rhombicuboctahedron
- Great Rollright
- great room
- Great Sankey
- great saphenous vein
- great sapphirewing
- great score
- great Scott
- great seal
- great seal script
- Great Shefford
- great skua
- great snipe
- great spotted kiwi
- great spotted woodpecker
- great stone-curlew
- Great Sutton
- greatsword
- great-tailed grackle
- Great Terror
- great thick-knee
- great tinamou
- great-tit
- great tit
- great toe
- Great Torrington
- great uncle
- great-uncle
- great unhosed
- great unwashed
- great vessel
- Great Vowel Shift
- Great Wall of China
- Great Waltham
- great white
- great white egret
- great white heron
- great white hope
- great white rat
- great white shark
- Great Witchingham
- Great Yarmouth
- Great Yeldham
- little strokes fell great oaks
- no great scratch
- no great shakes
- small rain lays great dust
- take great pains
- the great and the good
- two-line great primer
- with great difficulty
Descendants Edit
- → Welsh: grêt
Translations Edit
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
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Interjection Edit
great
- Expression of gladness and content about something.
- Great! Thanks for the wonderful work.
- 2016, VOA Learning English (public domain)
- I am in my new apartment! Great!
Audio (US) (file)
- I am in my new apartment! Great!
- sarcastic inversion thereof.
- Oh, great! I just dumped all 500 sheets of the manuscript all over and now I have to put them back in order.
Translations Edit
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Noun Edit
great (plural greats)
- A person of major significance, accomplishment or acclaim.
- Newton and Einstein are two of the greats of the history of science.
- 2019 May 1, Daniel Taylor, The Guardian[4]:
- Sadio Mané wasted a glorious chance in the first half and, late on, Mohamed Salah turned his shot against a post after a goal-line clearance had spun his way. That, in a nutshell, perhaps sums up the difference between Messi and the players on the next rung below – the ones who can be described as great footballers without necessarily being football greats.
- (music) The main division in a pipe organ, usually the loudest division.
- (in combinations such as "two-greats", "three-greats" etc.) An instance of the word "great" signifying an additional generation in phrases expressing family relationships.
- My three-greats grandmother.
Antonyms Edit
- (person of major significance, accomplishment or acclaim): mediocre
Translations Edit
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Adverb Edit
great (not comparable)
- (informal) Very well (in a very satisfactory manner).
- Those mechanical colored pencils work great because they don't have to be sharpened.
Translations Edit
References Edit
- ^ Jespersen, Otto (1909) A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles (Sammlung germanischer Elementar- und Handbücher; 9)[1], volume I: Sounds and Spellings, London: George Allen & Unwin, published 1961, § 11.75, page 339.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 David Crystal, The Oxford Dictionary of Original Shakespearean Pronunciation, 2016
Anagrams Edit
Old English Edit
Etymology Edit
From Proto-West Germanic *graut, from Proto-Germanic *grautaz (“big in size, coarse, coarse grained”), from *gʰer- (“to rub, grind, remove”).
Cognate with Old Saxon grōt (“large, thick, coarse, stour”), Old High German grōz (“large, thick, coarse”), Old English grot (“particle”). More at groat.
Pronunciation Edit
Adjective Edit
grēat
Declension Edit
Derived terms Edit
Descendants Edit
Scots Edit
Alternative forms Edit
Etymology Edit
From Middle English grete, from Old English grēat, from Proto-West Germanic *graut, from Proto-Germanic *grautaz.
Pronunciation Edit
Adjective Edit
great (comparative greater, superlative greatest)