Big
adjectiveOf considerable size, extent, importance, or intensity.
How to spell big
3 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce big
What does big mean?
- adjectiveOf considerable size, extent, importance, or intensity.
Big in a sentence
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They bought a big house on the edge of town.
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Landing the contract was a big moment for the company.
Where does big come from?
Language of origin: Old Norse
The word 'big' is something of a mystery in English, with no clear classical ancestor. It appears in Middle English around the 1300s, first in northern dialects, where it carried senses like 'strong', 'powerful', or 'of great size'. Scholars suspect it came from a Scandinavian source, perhaps related to a Norwegian dialect word 'bugge' meaning a great or important man, brought over during the long contact between English and Old Norse settlers. Over the centuries the broad notion of strength narrowed mostly to physical largeness, the sense we use today. Because its origin is genuinely unsettled, dictionaries usually mark it as 'of uncertain origin', and its short, simple three-letter spelling has stayed remarkably stable throughout.
How the word is built
- big (a single Middle English root meaning large or strong; no prefix or suffix)
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