different between gargantuan vs towering

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): /?ta?????/

Verb

towering

1. present participle of tower

Adjective

towering (comparative more towering, superlative most towering)

1. Very tall or high, so as to dwarf anything around it.

   • So this was my future home, I thought! […] Backed by towering hills, the but faintly discernible purple line of the French boundary off to the southwest, a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.

   • 1964, Look (volume 28, page 338)

     She is a towering girl with a husky baritone voice and a friendly and flamboyant style.

Translations

Noun

towering (plural towerings)

1. The act or condition of being high above others.
   • 1787, Robert Burns, letter to a friend

     But I am an old hawk at the sport; and wrote her such a cool, deliberate, prudent reply, as brought my bird from the aerial towerings, pop down at my foot like Corporal Trim's hat.

See also

• tower over
• towering inferno