Massive

How to spell massive

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce massive

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does massive mean?

1. adjectiveExtremely large, heavy, or substantial in size, amount, or degree.

Massive in a sentence

• The company reported a massive increase in quarterly profits.

• A massive oak table dominated the dining room.

Where does massive come from?

Language of origin: French

The word massive comes from the French massif, meaning 'bulky' or 'solid', which was built on masse, a heavy lump or body of matter. That French masse traces back to the Latin massa, meaning a 'kneaded lump' or 'dough', which itself was borrowed from the Greek maza, a barley cake formed by pressing dough together. The underlying idea throughout is something compacted into a dense, heavy whole, and from that the sense broadened to anything large and weighty. English adopted massive in the 1400s, originally to describe things that were physically solid and bulky, before it drifted into the looser modern meaning of simply 'very big'. The double s in the spelling preserves the Latin massa intact, and remembering the base word 'mass' is the easiest way to keep that spelling steady.

How the word is built

• mass (a large body or quantity)
• -ive (adjective suffix: tending to or characterised by)