AskDefine | Define large

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Dictionary Definition

large adj
1 above average in size or number or quantity or magnitude or extent; "a large city"; "set out for the big city"; "a large sum"; "a big (or large) barn"; "a large family"; "big businesses"; "a big expenditure"; "a large number of newspapers"; "a big group of scientists"; "large areas of the world" [syn: big] [ant: small, small]
2 fairly large or important in effect; influential; "played a large role in the negotiations"
3 large enough to be visible to the naked eye [syn: macroscopic, macroscopical] [ant: microscopic]
4 ostentatiously lofty in style; "a man given to large talk"; "tumid political prose" [syn: bombastic, declamatory, orotund, tumid, turgid]
5 generous and understanding and tolerant; "a heart big enough to hold no grudges"; "that's very big of you to be so forgiving"; "a large and generous spirit"; "a large heart"; "magnanimous toward his enemies" [syn: big, magnanimous]
6 conspicuous in position or importance; "a big figure in the movement"; "big man on campus"; "he's very large in financial circles"; "a prominent citizen" [syn: big, prominent]
7 having broad power and range and scope; "taking the large view"; "a large effect"; "a large sympathy"
8 in an advanced stage of pregnancy; "was big with child"; "was great with child" [syn: big(p), enceinte, expectant, gravid, great(p), large(p), heavy(p), with child(p)] n : a garment size for a large person adv
1 at a distance, wide of something (as of a mark)
2 with the wind abaft the beam; "a ship sailing large"
3 in a boastful manner; "he talked big all evening" [syn: boastfully, vauntingly, big]

User Contributed Dictionary

English

Pronunciation

Etymology

From large.

Adjective

  1. Of considerable or relatively great size or extent.
    (Russia is a large country)
    (The fruit-fly has large eyes for its body size)
    (He has a large collection of stamps)
See at large.
    • At liberty; Not incarcerated.
    • Representing the whole, rather than a section.
    • As a collection or entirely- "the populace at large"

Synonyms

Antonyms

Translations

of greater size
escaped criminal

Derived terms

French

Pronunciation

  • [laʁʒ
]

Etymology

From largus.

Adjective

large
  1. Wide, broad.
  2. Large.
  3. Generous.

Extensive Definition

Large is an English surname, with variants including Lardge, Lurge, and Larg. Its meaning is variable, though it may derive from the Norman French adjective, large (meaning "generous" or "big" [as in, "that's big of you", meaning generous, as well as large in size]), as it is found in the surname "le Large" in English records dating back as far as the 13th century. Harrison's work on English surnames gives the following:
"LARGE (adjectival: French, Latin) BIG; GENEROUS [Middle English Old French large; Latin larg-us, -a, [meaning] abundant, liberal]"
He gives an early citation for the name: William le Large from the Hundred Rolls, a reference dating to 1273.
He also provides a quotation showing the word in its older sense of generous, full, liberal or ample in its literary context:
So large of yift [gift] and free was she (from Chaucer's Romance of the Rose I168)
Another variant surname, "de Large", appears to be continental European rather than English in origin.
Henry Brougham Guppy's survey circa 1881, based on local British directories, places Large as a surname local to North Wiltshire, and considers it to have particular prevalence among yeoman farmers.(Guppy, 1890)
According to the International Genealogical Index, the surname is also found in many other English counties; in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and other English language countries; in France and Germany, and, more rarely, in the Scandinavian countries. People with the name Large or its variants include:

People

Variants

References

  • Carroll, Linda Largin, The Largin Legacy, 1995, p. 15 (date of reference to William le Large from the Hundred Rolls)
  • Guppy, Henry Brougham. Homes of Family Names in Great Britain. London: Harrison, 1890.
  • International Genealogical Index, www.familysearch.org
  • Harrison, Henry Surnames of the United Kingdom: A Concise Etymological Dictionary, 1912/1918, reprinted 1969 and 1996, p. 264
  • Reidy, John; Kurath, Hans; Lewis, Robert E.; Kuhn, Sherman M., Middle English Dictionary, Language Arts & Disciplines, 1971, p. 663 (for instances of the surname) pp. 657-663 (for the adjectival and adverbial uses of the word)
large in Yiddish: גרויס

Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words

Brobdingnagian, Gargantuan, adipose, altogether, ample, amplitudinous, as a whole, astronomical, at large, at liberty, awesome, beamy, beneficent, big, bighearted, boundless, bounteous, bountiful, brawny, broad, bulky, bull, bumper, burly, capacious, charitable, chiefly, chunky, colossal, considerable, corpulent, cosmic, eleemosynary, elephantine, eminently, enormous, excessive, exorbitant, extensive, extravagant, extreme, fat, free, freehanded, freehearted, galactic, gargantuan, generally, generous, gigantic, giving, good, goodly, gracious, grand, great, greathearted, handsome, healthy, heavy, hefty, hospitable, huge, humongous, husky, immeasurable, immense, immoderate, imposingly, in a body, in general, in the main, infinite, inordinate, jumbo, kind, king-size, large-scale, largehearted, lavish, liberal, magnanimous, mainly, major, mammoth, man-sized, massive, massy, monster, monstrous, monumental, mountainous, munificent, muscular, numerous, obese, on the loose, open, open-handed, openhanded, openhearted, outsize, overgrown, overweight, philanthropic, portly, princely, prodigious, profuse, prominently, rotund, sizable, sizeable, solid, spacious, staggering, stintless, stocky, stout, strapping, stupendous, sturdy, substantial, tall, thickset, tidy, titanic, tremendous, unconfined, unfettered, ungrudging, unrestrained, unselfish, unsparing, unstinted, unstinting, vast, voluminous, weighty, wide
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