gigant

Greek

gígas (γίγας)

a giant; the source of gigantic imagery

English

gigantic

borrowed through French/Latin learned usage

norm

Latin

norma

a carpenter's square; a rule or standard

French

norme

a standard or rule

English

enormous

originally something outside the norm, then very large

Combined

ginormous

a 1940s blend of gigantic + enormous, first noted as military colloquialism

Modern English

ginormous

used informally for something comically or impressively huge

Modern English

ginormous

Word Ancestry

gigant

Greek

gígas (γίγας)

a giant; the source of gigantic imagery

English

gigantic

borrowed through French/Latin learned usage

norm

Latin

norma

a carpenter's square; a rule or standard

French

norme

a standard or rule

English

enormous

originally something outside the norm, then very large

Combined

ginormous

a 1940s blend of gigantic + enormous, first noted as military colloquialism

Modern English

ginormous

used informally for something comically or impressively huge

Modern English

ginormous

“

Somebody in the 1940s, probably with a straight face and a wicked sense of humor, decided that gigantic was not gigantic enough and enormous was not enormous enough. So the two words slammed together in military slang and out popped ginormous — a word that sounds like it should come with its own marching band. One half comes from Greek gígas, the family of giants; the other comes from Latin norma, a carpenter’s square, which gave us enormous, originally something that stepped outside the rule. That little collision is the joke: one part monster-sized, one part beyond the line. Tomorrow, if something feels absurdly big, you can hear both a giant and a rule-breaking carpenter hiding inside it.

The Story

“

Somebody in the 1940s, probably with a straight face and a wicked sense of humor, decided that gigantic was not gigantic enough and enormous was not enormous enough. So the two words slammed together in military slang and out popped ginormous — a word that sounds like it should come with its own marching band. One half comes from Greek gígas, the family of giants; the other comes from Latin norma, a carpenter’s square, which gave us enormous, originally something that stepped outside the rule. That little collision is the joke: one part monster-sized, one part beyond the line. Tomorrow, if something feels absurdly big, you can hear both a giant and a rule-breaking carpenter hiding inside it.