Definify.com

Webster 1913 Edition

Great

Great

(grāt)
,
Adj.
[
Com
par.
Greater
;
sup
erl.
Greatest
.]
[OE.
gret
, great, AS.
greát
; akin to OS. & LG.
grōt
, D.
groot
, OHG.
grōz
, G.
gross
. Cf.
Groat
the coin.]
1.
Large in space; of much size; big; immense; enormous; expanded; – opposed to
small
and
little
;
as, a
great
house, ship, farm, plain, distance, length
.
2.
Large in number; numerous;
as, a
great
company, multitude, series, etc.
3.
Long continued; lengthened in duration; prolonged in time;
as, a
great
while; a
great
interval.
4.
Superior; admirable; commanding; – applied to thoughts, actions, and feelings.
5.
Endowed with extraordinary powers; uncommonly gifted; able to accomplish vast results; strong; powerful; mighty; noble;
as, a
great
hero, scholar, genius, philosopher, etc.
6.
Holding a chief position; elevated: lofty: eminent; distinguished; foremost; principal;
as,
great
men; the
great
seal; the
great
marshal, etc.
He doth object I am too
great
of birth.
Shakespeare
7.
Entitled to earnest consideration; weighty; important;
as, a
great
argument, truth, or principle
.
8.
Pregnant; big (with young).
The ewes
great
with young.
Ps. lxxviii. 71.
9.
More than ordinary in degree; very considerable in degree;
as, to use
great
caution; to be in
great
pain
.
We have all
Great
cause to give
great
thanks.
Shakespeare
10.
(Genealogy)
Older, younger, or more remote, by single generation; – often used before grand to indicate one degree more remote in the direct line of descent;
as,
great
-grandfather (a grandfather’s or a grandmother's father),
great
-grandson, etc.
Great bear
(
Astron.
),
the constellation Ursa Major.
–
Great cattle
(
Law
),
all manner of cattle except sheep and yearlings.
Wharton.
–
Great charter
(Eng. Hist.)
,
Magna Charta.
–
Great circle of a sphere
,
a circle the plane of which passes through the center of the sphere.
–
Great circle sailing
,
the process or art of conducting a ship on a great circle of the globe or on the shortest arc between two places.
–
Great go
,
the final examination for a degree at the University of Oxford, England; – called also
greats
.
T. Hughes.
–
Great guns
.
(Naut.)
See under Gun.
–
The Great Lakes
the large fresh-water lakes (Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario) which lie on the northern borders of the United States.
–
Great master
.
Same as
Grand master
, under
Grand
.
–
Great organ
(Mus.)
,
the largest and loudest of the three parts of a grand organ (the others being the choir organ and the swell, and sometimes the pedal organ or foot keys), It is played upon by a separate keyboard, which has the middle position.
–
The great powers
(of Europe),
in modern diplomacy, Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria, Russia, and Italy.
–
Great primer
.
See under
Type
.
–
Great scale
(
Mus.
),
the complete scale; – employed to designate the entire series of musical sounds from lowest to highest.
–
Great sea
,
the Mediterranean sea. In Chaucer both the Black and the Mediterranean seas are so called.
–
Great seal
.
(a)
The principal seal of a kingdom or state.
(b)
In Great Britain, the lord chancellor (who is custodian of this seal); also, his office.
–
Great tithes
.
See under Tithes.
–
The great
,
the eminent, distinguished, or powerful.
–
The Great Spirit
,
among the North American Indians, their chief or principal deity.
–
To be great
(with one),
to be intimate or familiar (with him).
Bacon.

Great

,
Noun.
The whole; the gross;
as, a contract to build a ship by the
great
.

Webster 1828 Edition

Great

GREAT

,
Adj.
[L. crassus.]
1.
Large in bulk or dimensions; a term of comparison, denoting more magnitude or extension than something else, or beyond what is usual; as a great body; a great house; a great farm.
2.
Being of extended length or breadth; as a great distance; a great lake.
3.
Large in number; as a great many; a great multitude.
4.
Expressing a large, extensive or unusual degree of any thing; as great fear; great love; great strength; great wealth; great power; great influence; great folly.
5.
Long continued; as a great while.
6.
Important; weighty; as a great argument; a great truth; a great event; a thing of no great consequence; it is no great matter.
7.
Chief; principal; as the great seal of England.
8.
Chief; of vast power and excellence; supreme; illustrious; as the great God; the great Creator.
9.
Vast; extensive; wonderful; admirable.
Great are thy works. Jehovah.
10. Possessing large or strong powers of mind; as a great genius.
11. Having made extensive or unusual acquisitions of science or knowledge; as a great philosopher or botanist; a great scholar.
12. Distinguished by rank, office or power; elevated; eminent; as a great lord; the great men of the nation; the great Mogul; Alexander the great.
13. Dignified in aspect,mien or manner.
Amidst the crowd she walks serenely great.
14. Magnanimous; generous; of elevated sentiments; high-minded. He has a great soul.
15. Rich; sumptuous; magnificent. He disdained not to appear at great tables. A great feast or entertainment.
16. Vast; sublime; as a great conception or idea.
17. Dignified; noble.
Nothing can be great which is not right.
18. Swelling; proud; as, he was not disheartened by great looks.
19. Chief; principal; much traveled; as a great road. The ocean is called the great highway of nations.
20. Pregnant; teeming; as great with young.
21. Hard; difficult. It is no great matter to live in peace with meek people.
22. Familiar; intimate. [Vulgar.]
23. Distinguished by extraordinary events, or unusual importance. Jude 6.
24. Denoting a degree of consanguinity, in the ascending or descending line, as great grandfather, the father of a grandfather; great great grandfather, the father of a great grandfather, and so on indefinitely; and great grandson, great great grandson. &c.
25. Superior; preeminent; as great chamberlain; great marshal.
The sense of great is to be understood by the things it is intended to qualify. Great pain or wrath is violent pain or wrath; great love is ardent love; great peace is entire peace; a great name is extensive renown; a great evil or sin, is a sin of deep malignity, &c.

GREAT

,
Noun.
The whole; the gross; the lump or mass; as, a carpenter contracts to build a ship by the great.
1.
People of rank or distinction. The poor envy the great, and the great despise the poor.

Definition 2024

great

great

See also: gréât and great-

English

Adjective

great ‎(comparative greater, superlative greatest)

  1. Very big, large scale.
    A great storm is approaching our shores.‎
    • 1922, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest:
      “[…] 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:
      ‘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.
  2. Very good.
    Dinner was great.‎
    • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 5, in The Mirror and the Lamp:
      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.
  3. Important.
    • William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
      He doth object I am too great of birth.
    • 1915, Emerson Hough, The Purchase Price, chapterI:
      “[…] 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? […]”
  4. Title referring to an important leader.
    Alexander the Great‎
  5. Superior; admirable; commanding; applied to thoughts, actions, and feelings.
    a great nature‎
  6. Endowed with extraordinary powers; uncommonly gifted; able to accomplish vast results; strong; powerful; mighty; noble.
    a great hero, scholar, genius, philosopher, etc.‎
  7. (obsolete) Pregnant; large with young.
  8. More than ordinary in degree; very considerable.
    to use great caution;  to be in great pain‎
    • William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
      We have all / Great cause to give great thanks.
    • 1915, Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, The Lodger, chapter I:
      Thus the red damask curtains which now shut out the fog-laden, drizzling atmosphere of the Marylebone Road, had cost a mere song, and yet they might have been warranted to last another thirty years. A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; […].
    • 2014 November 14, Blake Bailey, “'Tennessee Williams,' by John Lahr [print version: Theatrical victory of art over life, International New York Times, 18 November 2014, p. 13]”, in The New York Times:
      [S]he [Edwina, mother of Tennessee Williams] was indeed Amanda [Wingfield, character in Williams' play The Glass Menagerie] in the flesh: a doughty chatterbox from Ohio who adopted the manner of a Southern belle and eschewed both drink and sex to the greatest extent possible.
  9. [qualifying nouns of family relationship] Involving more generations than the word qualified implies. [see Derived terms]
  10. (obsolete, except with 'friend' and similar words such as 'mate','buddy') Intimate; familiar.

Usage notes

In simple situations, using modifiers of intensity such as fairly, somewhat, etc. can lead to an awkward construction, with the exception of certain common expressions such as “so great” and “really great”. In particular “very great” is unusually strong as a reaction, and in many cases “great” or its meaning of “very good” will suffice.

Synonyms

  • See also Wikisaurus:large
  • See also Wikisaurus:excellent

Antonyms

Derived terms

Translations

Interjection

great

  1. Expression of gladness and content about something.
    Great! Thanks for the wonderful work.
  2. 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

Noun

great ‎(plural greats)

  1. A person of major significance, accomplishment or acclaim.
    Newton and Einstein are two of the greats of the history of science.
  2. (music) The main division in a pipe organ, usually the loudest division.

Antonyms

  • (person of major significance, accomplishment or acclaim): mediocre

Translations

Adverb

great ‎(not comparable)

  1. very well (in a very satisfactory manner)
    Those mechanical colored pencils work great because they don't have to be sharpened.

Translations

Derived terms

Statistics

Most common English words before 1923: made · did · such · #85: great · must · these · two

Anagrams

Old English

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *grautaz ‎(“big in size, coarse, coarse grained”), from Proto-Indo-European *ghrewə- ‎(“to fell, put down, fall in”). Cognate with Old Saxon grōt ‎(“large, thick, coarse, stour”), Old High German grōz ‎(“large, thick, coarse”), Old English grot ‎(“particle”). More at groat.

Pronunciation

Adjective

grēat

  1. great, massive
  2. tall
  3. thick; stout
  4. coarse

Declension

Descendants

Scots

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Old English grēat, from Proto-Germanic *grautaz.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [ɡrɛt], [ɡrɪt]
  • (North Northern Scots) IPA(key): [ɡrit]

Adjective

great ‎(comparative greater, superlative greatest)

  1. great
  2. coarse (in grain or texture)
  3. (of things) thick, bulky, roomy
  4. (of people) big, stout
  5. (of a river) swollen with rain, in flood
  6. (of the sea) high, stormy
  7. intimate, friendly

Etymology

From Middle English greet ‎(“great, large”), from Old English grēat ‎(“big, thick, coarse, stour, massive”), from Proto-Germanic *grautaz ‎(“big in size, coarse, coarse grained”), from Proto-Indo-European *ghrewə- ‎(“to fell, put down, fall in”). 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”), Latin grandis ‎(“great, big”), Albanian ngre ‎(“I lift, heave, stand, elevate”). More at grit.

Pronunciation

  • enPR: grāt, IPA(key): /ɡɹeɪt/
  • Rhymes: -eɪt
  • Homophone: grate
  • IPA(key): /ˈɡræːɑt/

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