Chrysti The Wordsmith: Big Words - 4

Greetings and welcome to Christie the wordsmith. Colossal Hema jumbo. These delightful synonyms of the word Big have been featured recently on the series colossal derives from the Greek term Colossus. A statue of gigantic proportions. But he myth is a Hebrew word that refers to what we would otherwise call the hippopotamus and Jumbo is the name of an elephant displayed by circus impresario P.T. Barnum in the 1880s enormous is another member in this family of supersized words. Unlike the other terms mentioned above two of which are associated with animals and the other with a type of statue enormous has a rather straightforward life history to Smithy this word we look to the Latin language enormous consists of the Latin prefix ie one letter which means out and the root norm meaning rule or pattern which is also seen in the word normal. The suffix. Oh you ass at the tail of enormous means. Characterized by and is found in other Latin based English words such as

glorious joyous monstrous and the like putting the etymological puzzle pieces together. We have the word eat norm us which means characterized by being out of the norm or the rule or the pattern. In other words outsized or oversized other remarkable terms that suggest things of imposing proportions are mammoth gigantic and Galactic. You can discover their life histories in any good atom a logical dictionary. I'm Christi the wordsmith Christie the wordsmith is sponsored by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Zoot enterprises a high tech firm in Bozeman Montana offering challenging careers and innovative solutions for the financial services industry. Zoot web dot com.