tremendous

The word “tremendous” means extremely large in size, amount, or degree. In plain terms, very great in size, amount, or quality — used both for scary-huge things and for great, impressive ones.

“Tremendous” is pronounced trih-MEHN-duhs (/tɹɪˈmɛndəs/ in IPA).

Here is “tremendous” used in a sentence: “The project was a tremendous success.”

“Tremendous” is an adjective.

The word “tremendous” comes from Latin. From Latin tremendus, "fearful, to be trembled at," originally describing something so awesome it made people shake. Over time English softened it from "terrifying" to simply "very great" or "impressive.".

“Tremendous” is a fairly common word in modern English, usually learned at around the B1 level.

“Tremendous” has 2 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: extremely large in size, amount, or degree.

Enormous refers mainly to physical size or quantity, while tremendous covers size, amount, or degree and can also mean impressively good or powerful. You would call a mountain enormous, but you might call a performance tremendous.

Not always. Tremendous often expresses admiration, as in a tremendous achievement, but it can simply mark extreme degree, as in tremendous pressure or a tremendous explosion. In those cases it measures scale rather than approval.

In modern informal English, terrific almost always means excellent. Tremendous can mean excellent too, but it keeps a stronger sense of sheer size or force, as in a tremendous amount or tremendous energy, so it is the better choice when scale is the point.

Tremendous commonly pairs with amount, success, pressure, effort, respect, and opportunity. In each of these collocations it works as an intensifier meaning extremely great in size or degree.