Definition of "Gargantuan"

The delectableſt luſtie ſight and mouingeſt obiect, me thought it was that our Ile ſets forth, and nothing behinde in number with the inuincible Spaniſh Armada, though they were not ſuch Gargantuan boyſterous gulliguts as they, though ſhips and galeaſſes they would haue beene reckoned in the nauy of K. Edgar, who is chronicled & regiſtred with three thouſand ſhips of warre to haue ſcoured the narrow ſeas, and ſailed round about England euery Summer.

1599, [Thomas] Nashe, Nashes Lenten Stuffe, […], London: […] [Thomas Judson and Valentine Simmes] for N[icholas] L[ing] and C[uthbert] B[urby] […], page 5

Magnified to Gargantuan proportions and repeated three times over it is absolutely disgusting.

1896 July 15, “Notes”, in The Chap-Book, volume V, number 5, H. S. Stone & Company, page 240

Though a list of the great writers contain all the constituents of an Epicurean feast, yet to most of us it resembles the menu of a Gargantuan banquet.

1920, P[hilip] B[ertram] M[urray] Allan, “Books Which Form the Library”, in The Book-Hunter at Home, London: Philip Allan and Co., page 88

Wyndham Lewis is equipped for his task with an amazing vocabulary of diatribe and derision, a spleenful of gall, and sense for the absurd—the monstrous, the Gargantuan, the preposterously incongruous—which, when disciplined, makes his best passages uproariously effective. […] with a Gargantuan art unexampled in our time.

1932, The New York Times Book Review, pages 2 and 26

The telecommunications giant hopes that this write-off, which contributed to its Gargantuan $1.8 billion third-quarter loss, will clear the way for a steady stream of future earnings.

1991 November 4, R.F. Black, S. Dentzer, “Bush’s October Surprise”, in U.S. News & World Report, volume 111, number 19

Two East German Trabant cars attached to huge mechanical arms and outfitted with spotlights scan the crowd like alien prison sentries while a patchwork video quilt of Gargantuan screens, multi-image Vidiwalls and TV monitors spews words and pictures with exhausting velocity — Rock & Roll Mission Control running on amphetamine fast forward.

1992 October 1, David Fricke, “U2 Finds What It’s Looking For”, in Rolling Stone‎

“Oh, you can’t get away from rhythm, Romilayu […] You can’t get away from it,” claims the “fantastic” protagonist who adds to the rings of Hank Morgan’s exploits a truly Gargantuan dimension.

1997 February, Teresa F.A. Alves, “In Praise Of Saul’s Soul”, in American Studies International‎, volume XXXV, number 1, page 37

I’ve shoveled this Gargantuan driveway the last twelve winters.

2006, Stephen Dixon, “Winter”, in New England Review, page 161

They therefore present what he calls a Lilliputian challenge to unguided Darwinism; if he is right, they present it with a Gargantuan challenge as well.

2007 February 20, “Religion and Science”, in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy‎, archived from the original on 9 June 2007