Great

How to spell great

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce great

What does great mean?

1. adjectiveVery large in size, amount, or importance, or extremely good and impressive.

Great in a sentence

• The project was a great success and earned the whole team a bonus.

• She felt a great sense of relief once the mortgage was finally paid off.

Where does great come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word, descending from the Old English great, which originally meant 'thick', 'coarse', or 'massive' rather than 'excellent'. It belongs to a wider Germanic family that includes the Dutch groot and the German gross, all carrying the old sense of bulk and size. Over the medieval period the meaning broadened from sheer physical largeness toward importance, eminence, and finally to the modern colloquial sense of 'wonderful' or 'admirable'. The spelling keeps the old 'ea' digraph that once tracked a longer vowel, which is why it now sounds identical to 'grate' and traps writers who reach for the wrong homophone. A useful memory hook is that 'great' shares its sense of bigness with 'greatness', so the 'ea' stays put.

How the word is built

• great (a single native root meaning large; no productive prefix or suffix)

Words that sound like great

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• grate: To shred food by rubbing it against a rough surface, or to produce an irritating, scraping effect.