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BIGNESS
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The property of having a relatively great size
Synonyms:
bigness; largeness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("bigness" is a kind of...):
size (the physical magnitude of something (how big it is))
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "bigness"):
ampleness (the property of impressive largeness in size)
bulkiness; massiveness (an unwieldy largeness)
enormousness; grandness; greatness; immenseness; immensity; sizeableness; vastness; wideness (unusual largeness in size or extent or number)
capaciousness; commodiousness; roominess; spaciousness (spatial largeness and extensiveness (especially inside a building))
fullness; voluminosity; voluminousness (greatness of volume)
giantism; gigantism (excessive largeness of stature)
Antonym:
littleness (the property of having a relatively small size)
Derivation:
big (above average in size or number or quantity or magnitude or extent)
Context examples:
I showed him a corn that I had cut off with my own hand, from a maid of honour’s toe; it was about the bigness of Kentish pippin, and grown so hard, that when I returned England, I got it hollowed into a cup, and set in silver.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
That a proper quantity of this powder rammed into a hollow tube of brass or iron, according to its bigness, would drive a ball of iron or lead, with such violence and speed, as nothing was able to sustain its force.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
The next morning after my arrival, he took me in his chariot to see the town, which is about half the bigness of London; but the houses very strangely built, and most of them out of repair.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
He, who apprehended I could not live a month, was ready enough to part with me, and demanded a thousand pieces of gold, which were ordered him on the spot, each piece being about the bigness of eight hundred moidores; but allowing for the proportion of all things between that country and Europe, and the high price of gold among them, was hardly so great a sum as a thousand guineas would be in England.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
As the common size of the natives is somewhat under six inches high, so there is an exact proportion in all other animals, as well as plants and trees: for instance, the tallest horses and oxen are between four and five inches in height, the sheep an inch and half, more or less: their geese about the bigness of a sparrow, and so the several gradations downwards till you come to the smallest, which to my sight, were almost invisible; but nature has adapted the eyes of the Lilliputians to all objects proper for their view: they see with great exactness, but at no great distance.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
In one of these cells were several globes, or balls, of a most ponderous metal, about the bigness of our heads, and requiring a strong hand to lift them: the other cell contained a heap of certain black grains, but of no great bulk or weight, for we could hold above fifty of them in the palms of our hands.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
In his right waistcoat-pocket we found a prodigious bundle of white thin substances, folded one over another, about the bigness of three men, tied with a strong cable, and marked with black figures; which we humbly conceive to be writings, every letter almost half as large as the palm of our hands.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
The method I contrived was this: I prepared two round sticks, about the bigness of common cudgels; they were thicker at one end than the other, and I covered the thicker ends with pieces of a mouse’s skin, that by rapping on them I might neither damage the tops of the keys nor interrupt the sound.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
The nipple was about half the bigness of my head, and the hue both of that and the dug, so varied with spots, pimples, and freckles, that nothing could appear more nauseous: for I had a near sight of her, she sitting down, the more conveniently to give suck, and I standing on the table.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
These whales I have known so large, that a man could hardly carry one upon his shoulders; and sometimes, for curiosity, they are brought in hampers to Lorbrulgrud; I saw one of them in a dish at the king’s table, which passed for a rarity, but I did not observe he was fond of it; for I think, indeed, the bigness disgusted him, although I have seen one somewhat larger in Greenland.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
