# great
## English
### Etymology

From Middle English greet (“great, large”), from Old English grēat (“big, thick, coarse, massive”), from Proto-West Germanic *graut, from Proto-Germanic *grautaz (“big in size, coarse, coarse grained”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrewd-, *gʰer- (“to rub, grind, remove”).
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”). Related to grit. Doublet of gross.

### Pronunciation

* enPR: grāt
** (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA: /ˈɡɹeɪt/
** Audio (US):(file)
** (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA: /ˈɡɹæɪt/
** (Canada) IPA: [ˈɡɹeːt]
*** (Ottawa Valley) IPA: [ˈɡɹeːt], [ˈɡɹɛːt]
* Homophone: grate
* Rhymes: -eɪt

#### (obsolete)

* (1700s) enPR: grīt, IPA: /ɡɹiːt/
* (Early Modern English, 1500s–1600s) IPA: /ɡɹɛːt/, /ɡɹet/

### Adjective

great (comparative greater, superlative greatest)
* Taking much space; large.
** 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:“ […] 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: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:‘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.
** (of an abstract noun) Much, more than usual.
    great worry
*** 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:“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?”
*** 1951 March, John W. Cline, “The Future of Medicine”, in Northwest Medicine, volume 50, number 3, Portland, Ore.: Northwest Medical Publishing Association, page 165:The first half of this century has been referred to as the golden age of medicine. To me it seems more probable that we are on the threshold of a much greater age.
** (informal, British) Intensifying a word or expression, used in mild oaths.
    a dirty great smack in the face
    Great Scott!
* (informal) Very good; excellent; wonderful; fantastic. [from 1848]
    Dinner was great.
** 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter V, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC: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.
* Important, consequential.
    a great dilemma
    a great decision
** 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Daniel 2:48:So the King made Daniel a great man […]
** 1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act I, scene i, page 1:The Dawn is over-caſt, the Morning low’rs, And heavily in Clouds brings on the Day, The great, th’ important Day; big with the Fate Of Cato and of Rome.
** 2008, George McCandless, The ABCs of RBCs, Harvard University Press, page 2:The methods for finding parameters that are commonly used in RBC models include using coefficients that come from microeconomic studies for parameters like the time discount factor, rental income over total income for the parameters of a Cobb-Douglas production function, and adjusting parameters so that stationary state value values approach those of the great ratios such as consumption over income and capital over income.
* (qualifying nouns of family relationship) Involving more generations than the qualified word implies — as many extra generations as repetitions of the word great (from 1510s). [see Derived terms]
    great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather, great-great-great-grandfather
* (obsolete, postpositive, followed by 'with') Pregnant; large with young; full of.
    great with child
    great with hope
** 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Psalms 78:71:the ewes great with young
* (obsolete, except with 'friend' and similar words such as 'mate', 'buddy') Intimate; familiar.
** 1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Followers and Friends”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC:those that are so great with him
* (applied to actions, thoughts and feelings) Arising from or possessing idealism; admirable; commanding; illustrious; eminent.
    a great deed
    a great nature
    a great history
* Impressive or striking.
    a great show of wealth
* Much in use; favoured.
    Poetry was a great convention of the Romantic era.
* (applied to persons) Of much talent or achievements.
    a great hero, scholar, genius, philosopher, writer, etc.
* Doing or exemplifying (a characteristic or pursuit) on a large scale; active or enthusiastic.
    What a great buffoon!
    He’s not a great one for reading.
    a great walker

#### Usage notes

* Moderating adverbs such as fairly, somewhat, etc. tend not to be used with great. Some intensifiers can be used with some senses of great; for example, a very great amount, a very great man, the party was really great, though not *the party was very great.

#### Synonyms

* (augmentative): grand, super-, supra-, hyper-, ultra-, uber-, macro-, arch-, over-, mega-, giga-, -zilla
* See also Thesaurus:large
* See also Thesaurus:excellent
* gr8, grt (Internet slang, text messaging)

#### Antonyms

* (antonym(s) of “very big, large scale”): tiny
* (antonym(s) of “uncommonly gifted”): mediocre, ordinary

#### Derived terms

* a great deal
* a great many
* behind every great man is a great woman
* behind every great man there stands a woman
* child-great
* death is the great leveller
* double great primer
* engreaten
* go great guns
* go to great lengths
* great albatross
* great antshrike
* great ape
* Great Assize
* great auk
* great-aunt
* great aunt
* greataxe
* great balls of fire
* great bass
* great bass recorder
* great beyond
* great big
* great bit bucket in the sky
* great bittern
* great black-backed gull
* great black hawk
* great blue heron
* great blue lobelia
* greatbow
* great brown kingfisher
* great bulrush
* great bustard
* great cabin
* great Caesar's ghost
* great cardiac vein
* great casino
* great cassino
* great cat
* great cerebral vein
* great chain of being
* great chamber
* great circle
* great-circle arc
* great circle arc
* great circle route
* greatcoat
* great comet
* great conjunction
* great cormorant
* great crest
* great crested grebe
* great crested newt
* great cry and little wool
* great cubicuboctahedron
* Great Dane
* great deal
* great divide
* great dodecahedron
* great eggfly
* great egret
* greaten
* Great Feasts
* great fee
* Great Filter
* great-go
* great go
* great-grand
* great-grandaunt
* great grandchild
* great-grandchild
* great granddaughter, great-granddaughter
* great grandfather, great-grandfather
* great-grandfather-in-law
* great-grandkid
* great grandkid
* great-grandma
* great grandmaster
* great grandmother, great-grandmother
* great grand multipara
* great grand multiparity
* great grand multiparous
* great-grandnephew
* great-grandniece
* great-grandpa
* great-grandparent
* great grandparent
* great-grandparenthood
* great grandson, great-grandson
* great-granduncle
* great-great-grandchild
* great great grandchild
* great-great-granddaughter
* great great granddaughter
* great-great-grandfather
* great great grandfather
* great-great-grandma
* great-great-grandmother
* great great grandmother
* great-great-grandparent
* great great grandparent
* great-great-grandson
* great great grandson
* great great great grandfather
* great-great-great-grandfather
* great-great-great-grandmother
* great great great grandmother
* great-great-nephew
* great green macaw
* great grey owl
* great grey shrike
* great gross
* great gun
* great hall
* greathammer
* great haste makes great waste
* Greathead
* greathearted
* great-hearted
* great-heartedness
* great heaume
* great heavens
* great helm
* great horned owl
* great horsetail
* Great Hours
* great house
* great hundred
* great icosahedron
* great icosihemidodecahedron
* great imitator
* greatish
* great job
* great knot
* great laurel
* greatly
* great man theory
* great martyr
* great martyress
* great masquerader
* great minds
* great minds think alike
* great mullein
* great-nephew
* greatness
* great-niece
* great northern bean
* great northern diver
* great northern loon
* great northern prawn
* great northern shrike
* great oaks from little acorns grow
* great octave
* great office of state
* great one
* great outdoors
* great power
* great pox
* great-pox
* great primer
* great prior
* great ramshorn
* great reed warbler
* great replacement
* Great Replacement
* great replacement theory
* great reset
* great rhombicuboctahedron
* Great Rift Valley
* greatroom
* great room
* great saphenous vein
* great sapphirewing
* great Satan
* great Scott
* great seahorse
* great seal
* great seal script
* great skua
* great snipe
* greatsome
* great spotted kiwi
* great spotted woodpecker
* great stone-curlew
* greatsword
* great-tailed grackle
* Great Terror
* great thick-knee
* great tinamou
* great-tit
* great tit
* great toe
* great-uncle
* great uncle
* great unhosed
* great unwashed
* great vessel
* Great Vowel Shift
* great whale
* great wheel
* great white
* great white egret
* great white heron
* great white hope
* great white rat
* great white shark
* great willowherb
* grunkle
* little strokes fell great oaks
* no great scratch
* no great shakes
* nongreat
* overgreat
* pearl of great price
* small rain lays great dust
* success is a great deodorant
* take great pains
* the great and the good
* time is a great healer
* time is a great healer of all wounds
* time is the great healer
* to a great extent
* two-line great primer
* ungreat
* winning is a great deodorant
* with great difficulty
* Great Alne
* Great Altcar
* Great Amwell
* Great and Little Leighs
* Great Australian Bight
* Great Aycliffe
* Great Ayton
* Great Bardfield
* Great Barford
* Great Barr
* Great Barrier Island
* Great Barrier Reef
* Great Barton
* Great Bavington
* Great Bedwyn
* Great Belt
* Great Bend
* Great Bentley
* Great Bernera
* Great Bookham
* Great Bourton
* Great Bowden
* Great Bridge
* Great Bridgeford
* Great Britain
* Great Broughton
* Great Budworth
* Great Chart
* Great Chesterford
* Great Comberton
* Great Coxwell
* Great Dalby
* Great Dawley
* Great Driffield
* Great Dunmow
* Great Ellingham
* Great Elm
* Great Falls
* Great Glen
* Great Gonerby
* Great Harrowden
* Great Harwood
* Great Haywood
* Great Heck
* Great Horton
* Great Horwood
* Great Houghton
* Great Island
* Great Kimble
* Great Lakes
* Great Longstone
* Great Malvern
* Great Missenden
* Great Munden
* Great Musgrave
* Great Ness
* Great North Road
* Great Orme
* Great Ouse
* Great Pacific Garbage Patch
* Great Paxton
* Great Ponton
* Great Rollright
* Great Salkeld
* Great Salt Lake
* Great Sankey
* Great Shefford
* Great Shelford
* Great Slave Lake
* Great Southern
* Great Stour
* Great Sutton
* Great Tew
* Great Torrington
* Great Urswick
* Great Wall of China
* Great Waltham
* Great Welnetham
* Great Whelnetham
* Great Witchingham
* Great Wolford
* Great Yarmouth
* Great Yeldham

#### Descendants

* → Welsh: grêt

#### Translations

Afrikaans: groot (af)
Albanian: madhështore
Arabic: عَظِيم (ar) (ʕaẓīm), كَبِير (ar) (kabīr)
Egyptian Arabic: كبير (kibīr)
South Levantine Arabic: كبير (kbīr)
Aramaic:
Classical Syriac: ܪܒܐ (rabbā), ܟܒܝܪܐ (kabbīrā)
Jewish Aramaic: רַבָּא (rabbā)
Armenian: մեծ (hy) (mec)
Bavarian: grous
Belarusian: вялі́кі (be) (vjalíki)
Bengali: আকবর (bn) (akbor)
Bulgarian: голя́м (bg) (goljám), вели́к (bg) (velík)
Burmese: ကြီးမားသော (kri:ma:sau:)
Catalan: gran (ca), enorme (ca)
Cherokee: ᎡᏆ (equa)
Chinese:
Cantonese: 大 (yue) (daai$^6$)
Dungan: да (da)
Mandarin: 大 (zh) (dà), 巨大 (zh) (jùdà), 偉大 / 伟大 (zh) (wěidà)
Cornish: (unified) brâs
Crimean Tatar: ulu
Czech: veliký (cs)
Dalmatian: grund, gruond
Dutch: groot (nl)
Egyptian: (ꜥꜣ)
Erzya: покш (pokš)
Eshtehardi: پیل (pil)
Esperanto: ega
Estonian: vägev
Faroese: stórur (fo), mikil
Finnish: jättimäinen (fi), mahtava (fi), valtava (fi), jätti-, suunnaton (fi)
French: grand (fr)
Friulian: grant
Galician: grande (gl)
Georgian: დიდი (ka) (didi)
German: groß (de)
Gothic: 𐌼𐌹𐌺𐌹𐌻𐍃 (mikils)
Greek: μεγάλος (el) (megálos)
Ancient: μέγας (mégas)
Hebrew: גָּדוֹל (he) (gadól)
Hungarian: nagy (hu)
Icelandic: stór (is), mikill (is)
Ido: granda (io)
Indonesian: besar (id)
Irish: mór, ábhal
Italian: grande (it)
Japanese: 大きい (ja) (おおき​い, ōkii), 巨大な (ja) (きょだいな, kyodai na), 偉大な (ja) (いだいな, idai na)
Kazakh: ұлы (ūly)
Korean: 크다 (ko) (keuda), 거대하다 (ko) (geodaehada), 위대하다 (ko) (widaehada)
Kurdish:
Central Kurdish: مەزن (ckb) (mezn)
Kyrgyz: улуу (ky) (uluu)
Latin: magnus (la), grandis
Latvian: liels (lv), dižs, varens
Lithuanian: didelis (lt)
Macedonian: голем (golem)
Maore Comorian: -ɓole
Maori: mokorahi, mokotahi
Maranao: basar
Mizo: ropui, lian
Mòcheno: groas
Mongolian:
Cyrillic: их (mn) (ix)
Navajo: tsoh
Neapolitan: gruosso
North Frisian: (Föhr-Amrum) grat
Old Church Slavonic:
Cyrillic: великъ (velikŭ)
Glagolitic: ⰲⰵⰾⰻⰽⱏ (velikŭ)
Old East Slavic: великъ (velikŭ)
Old English: miċel
Old Norse: stórr, mikill
Ottoman Turkish: بیوك (büyük), قوجه (koca), ایری (iri), بزرك (büzürg)
Pashto: ستر (ps) (stër), لوی (loi)
Persian: بزرگ (fa) (bozorg), سترگ (fa) (setorg), عظیم (fa) ('azim)
Plautdietsch: groot (nds)
Polish: wielki (pl)
Portuguese: grande (pt), grandioso (pt), enorme (pt)
Quechua: hatun (qu)
Rapa Nui: nui
Romanian: mare (ro)
Russian: вели́кий (ru) (velíkij), большо́й (ru) (bolʹšój)
Sanskrit: मह (sa) (maha), महत् (sa) (mahat)
Scots: great, muckle, unco
Serbo-Croatian:
Cyrillic: вѐлик, го̀лем
Roman: vèlik (sh), gòlem (sh)
Slovak: veľký (sk)
Slovene: velik (sl)
Spanish: grande (es), gran (es), grosso (es) (Latin America), groso (es) (Southern Cone), grave (es) (negative contexts)
Swedish: stor (sv)
Tajik: бузург (tg) (buzurg)
Telugu: గొప్ప (te) (goppa)
Tocharian B: orotstse
Turkish: çok büyük, büyük (tr)
Udi: кала (kala)
Ugaritic: 𐎗𐎁 (rb)
Ukrainian: вели́кий (uk) (velýkyj)
Vietnamese: vĩ đại (vi), tuyệt quá
Welsh: mawr (cy)
West Frisian: grut (fy) :
    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

### Interjection

great
* Expression of gladness and content about something.
    Great! Thanks for the wonderful work.
** 2016, VOA Learning English (public domain)
    —I am in my new apartment! —Great!
       Audio (US):(file)
* A 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)
* A person of major significance, accomplishment or acclaim.
    Newton and Einstein are two of the greats of the history of science.
** 2019 May 1, Daniel Taylor, The Guardian‎:Sadio Mané wasted a glorious chance in the first half and, late on, Mohamed Salah turned his shot against a post after a goal-line clearance had spun his way. That, in a nutshell, perhaps sums up the difference between Messi and the players on the next rung below – the ones who can be described as great footballers without necessarily being football greats.
* (music) The main division in a pipe organ, usually the loudest division.
* (in combinations such as "two-greats", "three-greats" etc.) An instance of the word "great" signifying an additional generation in phrases expressing family relationships.
    My three-greats grandmother.

#### Antonyms

* (antonym(s) of “person of major significance, accomplishment or acclaim”): mediocre

#### Translations
### Adverb

great (not comparable)
* (informal) Very well (in a very satisfactory manner).
    Those mechanical colored pencils work great because they don’t have to be sharpened.

#### Translations
### References

* ↑ Jespersen, Otto (1909) A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles (Sammlung germanischer Elementar- und Handbücher; 9)‎, volumes I: Sounds and Spellings, London: George Allen & Unwin, published 1961, § 11.75, page 339.
* 1 2 David Crystal, The Oxford Dictionary of Original Shakespearean Pronunciation, 2016

### Anagrams

* 'Gater, Gater, Greta, ergat-, grate, retag, targe, terga

## Old English
### Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *graut, from Proto-Germanic *grautaz (“big in size, coarse, coarse grained”), from *gʰer- (“to rub, grind, remove”).
Cognate with Old Saxon grōt (“large, thick, coarse, stour”), Old High German grōz (“large, thick, coarse”), Old English grot (“particle”). More at groat.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ɡræ͜ɑːt/

### Adjective

grēat (comparative grīetra, superlative grīetest)
* great, massive
* tall
* thick; stout
* coarse

#### Derived terms

* grēatnes

#### Descendants

* Middle English: grete, greet, girt, gert (dialectal)
** English: great, (dialectal) gert
*** → Welsh: grêt
** Scots: great, greet, grete, greit, graat (Shetland)
** Yola: graat

## Scots
### Alternative forms

* greet, grete, greit
* graat (Shetland)

### Etymology

From Middle English grete, from Old English grēat, from Proto-West Germanic *graut, from Proto-Germanic *grautaz.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: [ɡrɛt], [ɡrɪt]
* (North Northern Scots) IPA: [ɡrit]
* (Shetland) IPA: [ɡrɑːt]

### Adjective

great (comparative greater, superlative greatest)
* great
* coarse (in grain or texture)
* thick, bulky, roomy (of things)
* big, stout (of people)
* swollen with rain, in flood (of a river)
* high, stormy (of the sea)
* intimate, friendly

### References

* “great, adj., n.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors, The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh: Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976, →OCLC.