Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

Prodigious

Definition: Prodigious

Prodigious

Adjective

1. So great in size or force or extent as to elicit awe; "colossal crumbling ruins of an ancient temple"; "has a colossal nerve"; "a prodigious storm"; "a stupendous field of grass"; "stupendous demand".

2. Of momentous or ominous significance; "such a portentous...monster raised all my curiosity"- Herman Melville; "a prodigious vision".

3. Far beyond what is usual in magnitude or degree; "a night of exceeding darkness"; "an exceptional memory"; "olympian efforts to save the city from bankruptcy"; "the young Mozart's prodigious talents".

Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
 

Date "prodigious" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1321. (references)

Etymology: Prodigious \Pro*di"gious\, adjective. [Latin expression prodigiosus, from prodigium prodigy; compare to French prodigieux. See Prodigy.]. (Websters 1913)


Synonyms: Prodigious

Synonyms: colossal (adj), exceeding (adj), exceptional (adj), olympian (adj), portentous (adj), stupendous (adj), surpassing (adj). (additional references)

Top     

Synonyms within Context: Prodigious

ContextSynonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).

Greatness

Vast, immense, enormous, extreme; inordinate, excessive, extravagant, exorbitant, outrageous, preposterous, unconscionable, swinging, monstrous, overgrown; towering, stupendous, prodigious, astonishing, incredible; marvelous.

Impossibility

Adjective: impossible; not possible; absurd, contrary to reason; unlikely; unreasonable; incredible; beyond the bounds of reason, beyond the bounds of possibility, beyond the realm of possibility; from which reason recoils; visionary; inconceivable; (improbable); prodigious; (wonderful); unimaginable, inimaginable; unthinkable.

Size

Huge, immense, enormous, mighty; vast, vasty; amplitudinous, stupendous; monster, monstrous, humongous, monumental; elephantine, jumbo, mammoth; gigantic, gigantean, giant, giant like, titanic; prodigious, colossal, Cyclopean, Brobdingnagian, Bunyanesque, Herculean, Gargantuan; infinite.

Wonder

Monstrous, prodigious, stupendous, marvelous; inconceivable, incredible; inimaginable, unimaginable; strange; (uncommon); passing strange.

Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Top     

Crosswords: Prodigious

English words defined with "prodigious": bigcolossalexceeding, exceptionalheavyOlympianportentous, prodigiously, Prodigiousnesssquandermania, stupendous, surpassingTeratical. (references)
Specialty definitions using "prodigious": Buncletights. (references)

Top     

Modern Usage: Prodigious

DomainUsage

Screenplays

Prodigious birth of love it is to me that I must love a loathed enemy. (Romeo + Juliet; writing credit: Craig Pearce)

I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature. (Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb; writing credit: Peter George; Stanley Kubrick)

Clever

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up. (references; author: Mark Twain)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Top     

Commercial Usage: Prodigious

DomainTitle

Books

  • Horse Preacher: A Methodist Circuit Rider Travels the Prodigious Tallgrass Prairies of Illinois During the 1830s (reference)

  • Mind of Society: From a Fruitful Analogy of Minsky to a Prodigious Idea of Teilhard de Chardin (The World Futures General Evolution Studies) (reference)

  • Orson Welles: A Prodigious Life (reference)

  • Prodigious Thrust (reference)

  • Professor Popkin's Prodigious Polish: A Tale of Coven Tree (reference)

    (more book examples)

  

Theater & Movies

  

Music

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Top     

Familiar Quotations: Prodigious

AuthorQuotation

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

From the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire, let freedom ring. From the mighty mountains of New York, let freedom ring. From the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania, let freedom ring ... Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill ...

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Top     

Historic Usage: Prodigious

AuthorDateQuotation

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

1963

So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. (Delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1933)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Top     

Use in Literature: Prodigious

TitleAuthorQuote

Les Miserables

Hugo, Victor

Although he was no longer young, it was reported that he was of prodigious strength.

Gulliver's Travels

Swift, Jonathan

I felt my box raised very high in the air, and then borne forward with prodigious speed.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Top     

Non-Fiction Usage: Prodigious

SubjectTopicQuote

Economic History

Morocco

The Moroccan cellular estimated market growth rate exceeds 50%. Subscriptions continued to increase since the inauguration of a second GSM license in April 2000. The Spanish Telefonica-led consortium, Meditel, subscriptions went up from 2,000 subscribers in 2000 to more than one million in May 2001. The government-owned existing license, Maroc Telecom, increased its investments (estimated to exceed USD 300 million in 2000), improved its marketing and promotional activities to very effectively meet the new competition, increasing subscribers from one million subscribers in summer of 2000 to 3 million in May 2001. A tender for a third mobile license is slated for 2003. The penetration rate, however, represents only 5%, which offers a prodigious potential to American businesses. (references)

Lexicography

Devil's Dictionary

TIGHTS, n. An habiliment of the stage designed to reinforce the general acclamation of the press agent with a particular publicity. Public attention was once somewhat diverted from this garment to Miss Lillian Russell's refusal to wear it, and many were the conjectures as to her motive, the guess of Miss Pauline Hall showing a high order of ingenuity and sustained reflection. It was Miss Hall's belief that nature had not endowed Miss Russell with beautiful legs. This theory was impossible of acceptance by the male understanding, but the conception of a faulty female leg was of so prodigious originality as to rank among the most brilliant feats of philosophical speculation! It is strange that in all the controversy regarding Miss Russell's aversion to tights no one seems to have thought to ascribe it to what was known among the ancients as "modesty." The nature of that sentiment is now imperfectly understood, and possibly incapable of exposition with the vocabulary that remains to us. The study of lost arts has, however, been recently revived and some of the arts themselves recovered. This is an epoch of renaissances, and there is ground for hope that the primitive "blush" may be dragged from its hiding-place amongst the tombs of antiquity and hissed on to the stage.

Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

Top     

Usage Frequency: Prodigious

"Prodigious" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 99.41% of the time. "Prodigious" is used about 169 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)
Parts of SpeechPercentUsage per
100 Million Words
Rank in English
Adjective (general or positive)99.41%16824,050
Noun (proper)0.59%1339,140
                    Total100.00%169N/A

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

Top     

Expression: Prodigious

Expression using "prodigious": have a prodigious run. Additional references.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Top     

Frequency of Internet Keywords: Prodigious

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.
 
ExpressionFrequency
per Day

precocious prodigious

29

prodigious

8
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Top     

Modern Translation: Prodigious

Language Translations for "prodigious"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.

Albanian

  

i stërmadh (huge, monster, monstrous), i paanë (endless, immense, infinite, measureless), i mrekullueshëm (divine, dreamy, elegant, excellent, fabulous, goluptious, goodly, gorgeous, heavenly, killing, magnificent, marvellous, marvelous, miraculous, nailing, nifty, peachy, rare, ravishing, remarkable, slapping, spanking, striking, superior, transcendent, unusual, wonderful, wondrous), i jashtëzakonshëm (egregious, emergency, exceeding, exceptional, exceptive, exclusive, extraordinary, heroic, inconceivable, incredible, marvellous, marvelous, phenomenal, powerful, sole, stupendous, terrible, thumping, transcendent, transcendental, uncommon, unthinkable, unusual, wonderful). (various references)

   

Arabic 

  

‏معجز (miraculous), ‏مذهل (amazing, astonishing, astounding, baffling, bewildering, confusing, dumbfounding, spectacular, staggering, startling, stunning, stupendous), ‏مدهش (agape, amazing, astonishing, astounding, awesome, baffling, dandy, dumbfounding, marvellous, marvelous, out of this world, phenomenal, ripping, staggering, startling, striking, stunning, surprising, topping, trembling, wonder, wonderful, wondrous), ‏هائل (astronomic, astronomical, awful, colossal, enormous, formidable, gargantuan, gigantesque, hugely, immense, massive, mighty, monstrous, monumental, mountainous, outsize, oversize, portentous, rip roaring, stupendous, terrific, thumping, thundering, titanic, towering, tremendous, whopping, wicked, wide), ‏غير عادي (off beat, remarkable, uncommon, unorthodox, unusual), ‏ضخم (astronomic, astronomical, awful, big, bulking, bulky, bull, colossal, colossus, considerable, distend, elephantine, enormous, exaggerate, extend, exuberant, fat, gargantuan, ghastly, giant, gigantic, goodly, grand, great, handsome, heavy, hefty, heroic, huge, hulking, husky, immense, intense, jumbo, large, leviathan, liberal, mammoth, mass, massive, mighty, monstrous, monumental, mountainous, outsize, oversize, palatial, phenomenal, powerful, proud, round, royal, sizable, smart, strapping, strong, stupendous, sublime, swingeing, tall, tidy, titan, titanic, towering, tremendous, vast, voluminous, whacking, whopping), ‏إستثنائي (especial, exceptional, exceptive, extraneous, extraordinary, freak, freaked, mighty, out of the ordinary, particular, phenomenal, premium, rare, remarkable, singular, special, terrific, thundering, uncommon, unusual), ‏أعجوبي (miraculous), ‏شاذ (aberrant, anomalous, atypical, bastard, bizarre, eccentric, erratic, exotic, extraordinary, extravagant, far fetched, freak, intriguing, irregular, monstrous, moonstruck, odd, off beat, outlandish, preternatural, queer, rogue, scatty, singular, stupendous, thumping, wild). (various references)

   

Bulgarian 

  

удивителен (amazing, astonishing, astounding, dizzy, exclamatory, extraordinary, fantastic, fantastical, marvellous, marvelous, remarkable, striking, stupendous, surprising, wonderful), чудовищен (enormous, miscreated, monster, monstrous, unnatural), грамаден (enormous, exceeding, huge, immeasurable, immense, lumping, monster, monstrous, mountainous), огромен (enormous, formidable, gargantuan, giantlike, herculean, howling, huge, mammoth, mighty, monumental, mountainous, oceanic, oversize, planetary, portentous, slashing, super, terrible, terrific, thumping, thundering, tremendous, unwieldy, vast, walloping, whacking, whaling, whopping), ненормален (insane, irregular), изумителен (amazing, astonishing, overwhelming, splashing, startling, stupendous, surprising). (various references)

   

Czech

  

podivuhodný (admirable, marvelous, wonderful), nesmírný (enormous, extreme, great, immeasurable, immense, infinite, rare, unbounded, utmost, vast), úžasný (admirable, amazing, astonishing, bewildering, glorious, hot, nailing, phenomenal, splendid, stupendous, terrific, tremendous, wonderful). (various references)

   

Farsi 

  

حیرت اور (Marvelous, Problematic, Stupendous, Wondrous), غیرعادی (Abnormal, Anomalous, Extraordinary, Irregular, Queer, Unco, Uncommon, Unusual, Unwonted, Utter), شگفت (Muse, Stupendous, Surprise, Wonder), شگرف (Excellent, Fine, Tremendous, Wondrous). (various references)

   

French

  

prodigieux, extraordinaire. (various references)

   

German

  

wunderbar (admirable, delightful, delightfully, lovely, magically, marvellous, marvellously, marvelous, miraculous, miraculously, prodigiously, wonderful, wonderfully, wondrous). (various references)

   

Greek 

  

καταπληκτικόσ (amazing, astounding, startling, striking, stunning, stupendous, tremendous), τεράστιοσ (enormous, gargantuan, huge, monster, stupendous), θαυμάσιοσ (admirable, fabulous, marvellous, marvelous, stunning, topping, wonderful). (various references)

   

Hebrew 

  

מפליא (amazing, marvellous, wonderful, wondrous). (various references)

   

Hungarian

  

bámulatos (amazing, gorgeous, marvellous, marvelous, surprising, wonderful), óriási (capital, colossal, elephantine, enormous, gargantuan, giant, giantlike, gigantean, gigantesque, gigantic, grandiose, helluva, huge, immeasurable, immense, jumbo, mammoth, monster, monstrous, mountainous, smashing, smashing victory, stupendous, terrific, tremendous, vast, vasty, way-out, whacking, whopping). (various references)

   

Italian

  

prodigioso (magic, magical, portentous, wonderful). (various references)

   

Manx

  

yindyssagh (admirable, marvellous, rare, surprising, terrific, wonderer, wonderful). (various references)

   

Pig Latin

  

odigiouspray

   

Portuguese

  

prodigioso (miraculous, phenomenal, portentous, stupendous, wonderful, wondrous), maravilhoso (amazing, delightful, lovely, marvellous, marvelous, miraculous, portentous, unco, wonderful, wondrous), incomum (freakish, uncommon, unusual), extraordinário (amazing, exquisite, extra, extraordinary, formidable, king-size, miraculous, particular, phenomenal, rare, remarkable, sensational, shining, singular, special, sublime, surpassing, transcendent, tremendous, uncommon, unusual, unwonted), estupendo (boss, monumental, sensational, stupendous), enorme (big, bloodcurdling, cursed, deuced, enormous, gargantuan, gigantic, gross, howling, huge, immense, large, mammoth, measureless, monster, monstrous, monumental, mountainous, rousing, stupendous, swingeing, terrific, thumping, thundering, tremendous, unco, unconscionable, untold, walloping, whacking, whopping). (various references)

   

Romanian

  

prodigios (prodigiously, stupendous, stupendously), uriaş (astronomic, astronomical, colossal, colossus, elephantine, enormous, giant, giantlike, gigantic, goliath, huge, immense, infinite, mammoth, mite, monster, monumental, mountainous, ogre, strapping, thumping, vast), uimitor (amazing, astonishing, marvellous, startling, striking, stupendous, surprising), fenomenal (astonishingly, extraordinary, marvellous, monumental, phenomenal, phenomenally, remarkably, wonderfully), extraordinar (amazing, arch, astonishing, egregious, enormous, exceedingly, extra, extraordinary, extremely, fierce, marvellous, noble, out, phenomenal, phenomenally, proud, rare, rattling, remarkable, special, striking, terrible, tremendous, uncommon, undreamed of, unimaginable, up to the nines, well, well I never, wonderful), enorm (astonishing, awful, colossal, enormous, frightful, huge, hugely, hugeous, immense, immensely, infinite, massive, monstrous, monumental, mountainous, terrible, thundering, tremendous, vast, whopping), anormal (abnormal, abnormally, anomalous, monstrous). (various references)

   

Russian 

  

огромный (biggish, cosmic, devastating, enormous, enourmous, giantlike, huge, immense, knock out, massive, monster, terrific, tremendous, whacking, whopping). (various references)

   

Scottish

  

fuathasach (dreadful, terrible; prodigious). (various references)

   

Serbo-Croatian

  

gorostasan (walloping), čudesan (miraculous, stupendous, wonderful, wondrous). (various references)

   

Spanish

  

prodigioso (downy, wonderful), portentoso (portentous), ingente (colossal, enormous, giant, gigantic, huge), enorme (cyclopean, egregious, enormous, great, gross, heinous, huge, immense, jumbo, killing, king size, marvellous, marvelous, massive, mighty, monster, monstrous, monumental, mountainous, outsize, swingeing, thundering, tremendous, vast, walloping, whacking). (various references)

   

Swedish

  

oerhörd (egregious, enormous, exorbitant, unheard of). (various references)

   

Turkish

  

olağanüstü (above the ordinary, breathtaking, classical, dreamy, exceeding, exceptional, extra, extraordinary, extreme, fantastic, fantastical, glorious, huge, incredible, marvellous, marvelous, miraculous, necromantic, out of this world, paramount, phenomenal, portentous, preternatural, rare, raving, remarkable, shining, smashing, special, spectacular, splendid, sublime, supernatural, supernormal, terrific, unearthly), müthiş (almighty, appalling, awful, bang up, beastly, colossal, deadly, devastating, devilish, dire, direful, fabulous, fearful, filthy, formidable, frightful, gee-whiz, helluva, ripping, smashing, splendid, splendiferous, stunning, stupendous, superb, swell, tearing, terrible, terrific, thundering, unco, wild), kocaman (big, bulky, colossal, cyclopean, elephantine, enormous, fab, frightful, gargantuan, gigantean, gigantic, gross, huge, hugely, hulking, hulky, jumbo-sized, mammoth, monster, of vast dimensions, rousing, tearing, thumping, thundering, tremendous, walloping, whacking, whaling, whopping), harika (beautiful, bully, cool, corking, divine, fabulous, fantastic, fantastical, far out, gorgeous, groovy, immense, in the groove, jolly good, keen, marvel, marvellous, marvelous, miracle, no mean, old, phenomenal, phenomenon, prodigy, ripping, scrumptious, splendid, swell, whizz, wicked, wizard, wonder, wonderful, wondrous, yummy, yum-yum), şaşılacak (amazing, astonishing, astounding, wonderful, wondrous). (various references)

   

Ukrainian

  

страхітливий (appalling, frightful, horrendous, horrific, unnatural, whopping), чудесний (miraculous, wonderful), величезний (astronomic, astronomical, babylonian, banging, decuman, dimensionless, enormous, flagrant, formidable, giantlike, grandiose, great, handsome, huge, immense, mighty, monstrous, mountainous, overwhelming, slapping, swingeing, thumping, thundering, tremendous, vasty, walloping, whacking, whaling), надзвичайний (abysmal, dense, dreadful, egregious, exceeding, exceptional, extreme, snorting, uncommon, unusual, water, woundy), дивовижний (amazing, electrical, extraordinary, heavenly, marvellous, marvelous, outlandish, portentous, remarkable, striking, stupendous, surprising, wonderful). (various references)

   

Vietnamese 

  

phi thường (hyperphysical, inconceivable, marvellous, miraculous, phenomenal, remarkable, slashing, superhuman, uncommon, unimaginable), lớn lao (considerably, grandiose, substantively), kỳ lạ; to lớn. (various references)

   

Welsh

  

aruthrol (huge). (various references)

Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Top     

Ancestral Language Translations: Prodigious

LanguagePeriodTranslations
Latin500 BCE-Modern

ingens. (various references)

Avestan200-600

varecanguhañtem. (various references)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

Top     

Derivations & Misspellings: Prodigious

Derivations

Words beginning with "prodigious": prodigiously, prodigiousness, prodigiousnesses. (additional references)


Misspellings

"Prodigious" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: pordigious, predigious, prodgious, prodidgious, prodigeous, prodigioius, prodigiosus, prodigous, prodiguous, prodigus, prodijious, protogynous, prudigious. (additional references)

Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

Top     

Rhyming with "Prodigious"

# of Phoneme MatchesPronunciationWord(s) rhyming with "prodigious" (pronounced prudi"jus)
4-i" j u slitigious, nonreligious, prestigious, religious, semireligious.
3-j u sadvantageous, aegis, Burgess, contagious, courageous, disadvantageous, egregious, gorgeous, largess, outrageous, sacrilegious.

Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Top     

Anagrams: Prodigious

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams

Words within the letters "d-g-i-i-o-o-p-r-s-u"

-1 letter: groupoids.

-2 letters: groupoid.

-3 letters: opioids, spiroid, sporoid, upgirds, uropods.

-4 letters: droops, gourds, groups, guiros, iodous, isopod, odious, odours, opioid, pirogi, pooris, porous, upgird, uropod.

-5 letters: dipso, doors, dorps, drips, droop, drops, drugs, duros, girds, giros, goods, goops, gorps, gourd, grids, grips, group, guids, guiro, irids, odors, odour, ordos, pious, pirog, poods, poori, pours, prigs, prods.

 Words containing the letters "d-g-i-i-o-o-p-r-s-u"
 

+2 letters: prodigiously.

 

+4 letters: prodigiousness.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.

Top     



INDEX

1. Definition
2. Synonyms
3. Crosswords
4. Usage: Modern
5. Usage: Commercial
6. Quotations: Familiar
7. Quotations: Historic
8. Quotations: Fiction
9. Quotations: Non-fiction
10. Usage Frequency
11. Expressions
12. Expressions: Internet
13. Translations: Modern
14. Translations: Ancient
15. Derivations
16. Rhymes
17. Anagrams
18. Bibliography


  

Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.