- 1極其巨大的；也用來誇張「極大的」（錯誤、浪費等）
Colossal is a strong word for extremely large. You reach for it when huge is not enough and you want someone to feel the size: a colossal statue, a colossal building, a colossal amount of money. Though actually, a lot of the time nobody is measuring metres at all. People say a colossal mistake, a colossal failure, a colossal waste — they mean the thing is extremely serious, or extremely big in effect, not that you could put a ruler against it. The word still carries a little of the old giant-statue feeling: so big it is almost famous. It is more dramatic than big or huge, a little more than enormous, and you will hear it in news, stories, and adult talk more than in the playground.
From the word’s history
From French colossal, from Latin colossus, from Ancient Greek κολοσσός 'giant statue'.
源自法文 colossal，來自古希臘文 κολοσσός「巨大的雕像」。
組成From French colossal, built on Latin colossus, from Ancient Greek κολοσσός (kolossós), a giant statue.
同家族的字
- colossusthe giant statue — and later a giant person or thing — that this adjective comes from
- colossallythe adverb formed from colossal
- Colosseumthe building in Rome, named from the same Greek word for a giant statue
原始詞典資料2 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
colossaladj/kəˈlɒsəl/
- 1
Extremely large or on a great scale.
- A single puppy can make a colossal mess.
- Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers.[…]Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster. Clever financial ploys are what have made billionaires of the industry’s veterans. “Operational improvement” in a portfolio company has often meant little more than promising colossal bonuses to sitting chief executives if they meet ambitious growth targets. That model is still prevalent today.
- 2
Amazingly spectacular; extraordinary; epic.
- "It's just the very biggest thing that I ever heard of!" said I, though it was my journalistic rather than my scientific enthusiasm that was roused. "It is colossal. You are a Columbus of science who has discovered a lost world."
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。