different between gargantuan vs hulking

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?h?lk??/

Adjective

hulking (not comparable)

1. Large and bulky, heavily built; massive.
   • 2001, Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl, page 212:

     A hulking shape burst through the doorway and hurtled down the corridor, leaving a maelstrom of air currents in his wake.

2. Unwieldy.

Translations

Noun

hulking (plural hulkings)

1. A kind of sloping embankment used as a coastal defence.
   • 1953, The Institution of Civil Engineers, Proceedings (volume 2, part 2, page 513)

     The sand-hills have permanently disappeared from many parts of the coast and have been replaced by clay embankments, timber hulkings, and, during the pre-war years, by mass-concrete stepwork.

Related terms

• hulk

Verb

hulking

1. present participle of hulk