Big Meaning
/bɪɡ/Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
adjOf great size, large.
adjOf great size, large., Fat.
Sentence Examples
When we are small, everything seems so big.
You can't get lost in big cities; there are maps everywhere!
The fact that I was a foreigner was a big disadvantage.
CEFR Practice Quiz
Elephants are known for having a ____ body compared to other animals.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
He bought a ____ house with many rooms for his large family to live in.
Word Origin & History
Inherited from Northern Middle English big, bigge (“powerful, strong”), possibly from a dialect of Old Norse. Ultimately perhaps a derivative of Proto-Germanic *bugja- (“swollen up, thick”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰew-, *bu- (“to swell”), in which case big would be related to bogey, bugbear, and bug. Compare dialectal Norwegian bugge (“great man”), Low German Bögge, Boggelmann.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The big houses, and there are a good many of them, lie for the most part in what may be called by courtesy the valleys. You catch a glimpse of them sometimes at a little distance from the [railway] line,[…], with their court of farm and church and clustered village, in dignified seclusion."
— 1909 September 9, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], chapter III, in The Squire’s Daughter, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC:
"Investors face a quandary. Cash offers a return of virtually zero in many developed countries; government-bond yields may have risen in recent weeks but they are still unattractive. Equities have suffered two big bear markets since 2000 and are wobbling again. It is hardly surprising that pension funds, insurers and endowments are searching for new sources of return. […] When a company’s share price rises faster than the rest of the market, this means that it has a bigger weight in a traditional index."
— 2013 July 6, “The rise of smart beta”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8843, archived from the original on 12 Nov 2020, page 68:
"Out of the 484 Utah water systems that reported data in 2024, only 66 fluoridated their water, an Associated Press analysis showed. The largest was the state’s biggest city, Salt Lake City."
— 2025 March 28, “Utah becomes the first state to ban fluoride in public drinking water”, in CNN, sourced from Associated Press:
"The Dawn is over-caſt, the Morning low’rs,
And heavily in Clouds brings on the Day,
The great, th’ important Day; big with the Fate
Of Cato and of Rome."
— 1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act I, scene i, page 1:
"Uh oh ... that looks like one of those things the big people don't want us to touch, Marvin!"
— 1998 April 12, Tom Armstrong, Marvin (comic):
Explore More A1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
Elephants are known for having a ____ body compared to other animals.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
He bought a ____ house with many rooms for his large family to live in.