different between gargantuan vs gruesome

English

Etymology

From French Gargantua, a giant with a very large appetite in Rabelais's The Inestimable Life of Gargantua. Rabelais derived Gargantua from the Portuguese and Spanish garganta (“throat”).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?????æn.t?u.?n/

Adjective

gargantuan (comparative more gargantuan, superlative most gargantuan)

1. Huge; immense; tremendous.

   Synonyms: colossal, enormous, giant, huge, humongous, immense; see also Thesaurus:gigantic
2. (obsolete) Of the giant Gargantua or his appetite.

Derived terms

• gargantuanism
• gargantuanly
• gargantuanness

Translations

Further reading

• “gargantuan”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.

References

English

Etymology

From grue (“to shudder”) +? -some. Compare Danish and Norwegian grusom (“horrible”), German grausam (“cruel”), and Dutch gruwzaam (“gruesome; cruel”).

Adjective

gruesome (comparative gruesomer or more gruesome, superlative gruesomest or most gruesome)

1. Repellently frightful and shocking; horrific or ghastly.
   • 1912: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 6

     In the middle of the floor lay a skeleton, every vestige of flesh gone from the bones to which still clung the mildewed and moldered remnants of what had once been clothing. Upon the bed lay a similar gruesome thing, but smaller, while in a tiny cradle near-by was a third, a wee mite of a skeleton.

Translations