GREATNESS

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Unusual largeness in size or extent or number

Synonyms:

enormousness; grandness; greatness; immenseness; immensity; sizeableness; vastness; wideness

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("greatness" is a kind of...):

bigness; largeness (the property of having a relatively great size)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "greatness"):

enormity (vastness of size or extent)

Derivation:

great (relatively large in size or number or extent; larger than others of its kind)

great (remarkable or out of the ordinary in degree or magnitude or effect)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The property possessed by something or someone of outstanding importance or eminence

Synonyms:

greatness; illustriousness

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("greatness" is a kind of...):

importance (the quality of being important and worthy of note)

Derivation:

great (of major significance or importance)

Credits

Context examples:

At night we could hear from amid the trees the long-drawn cry, as some primitive Ezekiel mourned for fallen greatness and recalled the departed glories of Ape Town.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

All Huntingdon exclaimed on the greatness of the match, and her uncle, the lawyer, himself, allowed her to be at least three thousand pounds short of any equitable claim to it.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

She began to see that character is a better possession than money, rank, intellect, or beauty, and to feel that if greatness is what a wise man has defined it to be, 'truth, reverence, and good will', then her friend Friedrich Bhaer was not only good, but great.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

They had music; Emma was obliged to play; and the thanks and praise which necessarily followed appeared to her an affectation of candour, an air of greatness, meaning only to shew off in higher style her own very superior performance.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Saturn comes by every 29 years to fill this house and guide you to greatness, and Pluto only comes once (if at all), as it takes 248 years for Pluto to revolve around the Sun and through your horoscope.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

But when some confessed they owed their greatness and wealth to sodomy, or incest; others, to the prostituting of their own wives and daughters; others, to the betraying of their country or their prince; some, to poisoning; more to the perverting of justice, in order to destroy the innocent, I hope I may be pardoned, if these discoveries inclined me a little to abate of that profound veneration, which I am naturally apt to pay to persons of high rank, who ought to be treated with the utmost respect due to their sublime dignity, by us their inferiors.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

It was not without some emotion that he looked upon the scene around him, for, in spite of his secluded life, he knew enough of the ancient greatness of his own family to be aware that the time had been when they had held undisputed and paramount sway over all that tract of country.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Mr. Utterson’s only answer was to rise and get his hat and greatcoat; but he observed with wonder the greatness of the relief that appeared upon the butler’s face, and perhaps with no less, that the wine was still untasted when he set it down to follow.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

I have no notion of people's making such a to-do about money and greatness.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Every nincompoop in the land rushed into free print, floating their wizened little egos into the public eye on the surge of Brissenden's greatness.