momentous
English edit
Etymology edit
Pronunciation edit
Adjective edit
momentous (comparative more momentous, superlative most momentous)
- Outstanding in importance, of great consequence.
- 1725, Daniel Defoe, Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business:
- The reason why I did not publish this book till the end of the last sessions of parliament was, because I did not care to interfere with more momentous affairs.
- 1831, James Fenimore Cooper, chapter 31, in Homeward Bound:
- "It has been a momentous month, and I hope we shall all retain healthful recollections of it as long as we live."
- 1902, Joseph Conrad, chapter 3, in The End of the Tether:
- What to the other parties was merely the sale of a ship was to him a momentous event involving a radically new view of existence.
- 2007 July 1, Richard Dawkins, “Inferior Design”, in New York Times, retrieved 19 November 2013:
- Natural selection is arguably the most momentous idea ever to occur to a human mind, because it — alone as far as we know — explains the elegant illusion of design that pervades the living kingdoms and explains, in passing, us.
Derived terms edit
Translations edit
of outstanding importance or great consequence