massive
/ˈmasɪv
/adjective
1Large and heavy or solid: a massive rampart of stone...
- It has a heavy skull and a massive neck, and it is also by far the shortest-legged and least cursorial canid.
- The heavy and massive furniture seems doomed to remain anchored to its designated space.
- Heating pipes ran under the house - massive things lagged with heavy brown felt.
Synonyms
huge, enormous, gigantic, very big, very large, great, giant, colossal, mammoth, vast, immense, tremendous, mighty, stupendous, monumental, epic, prodigious, mountainous, monstrous, titanic, towering, elephantine, king-sized, king-size, gargantuan, Herculean, Brobdingnagian, substantial, extensive, hefty, bulky, weighty, heavy, gross
informal mega, monster, whopping, whopping great, thumping, thumping great, humongous, jumbo, hulking, bumper, astronomical, astronomic
British informal whacking, whacking great, ginormous
2Exceptionally large: massive crowds are expected...
- While the great powers were spending massive amounts of money on weapons and germ warfare, children were dying of starvation in many lands.
- For now, of course, it's reserved for those with massive amounts of money.
- Not only will campus bars lose massive amounts of money if they are dry, but they will be far less successful as venues for musical acts.
2.1Very serious: a massive heart attack...
- Those are patients with suspected heart attacks, massive bleeding, and serious head injuries.
- One man was taken seriously ill after suffering a massive asthma attack following building work at flats.
- Sadly, that was no use to my beloved mother who died recently - in Scotland - from a massive heart attack, while on a waiting list for heart surgery.
2.2 informal Very successful or influential: the band are going to be massive...
- Part of his dilemma is being a victim of his first hit film's massive success.
- ‘Roosters have been a massive influence on the success of the pub as well,’ says Shaun.
- His own composition - a massive hit - has been overlooked in favour of the vastly inferior follow-up single, which he had nothing to do with.
3 Geology (Of rocks or beds) having no discernible form or structure: a massive limestone without bedding planes...
- Offset by the blue of sky, the massive beds of rock stand out in surprising colours.
- These highly alkaline lakes can produce massive beds of silica.
- The bed thickness is variable from thinly bedded to massive beds up to 9 m thick, and the contacts with other facies are generally gradational.
3.1(Of a mineral) not visibly crystalline: massive sulphides...
- Some ore deposit types, such as volcanogenic massive sulphide deposits, can contain both syngenetic and epigenetic mineralization.
- It also occurs in crusty or otherwise finely crystalline massive aggregates.
- The massive sulphides are always contained within the Volcano - Sedimentary Complex.
noun British informal
A group of young people from a particular area with a common interest in dance music: the Bristol massive...
- It was an ambitious plan to bring together the hip hop and drum ‘n’ bass massives.
- It has a long history of cross-cultural events, giving equal time to white, black, Indian and Asian DJs - and by extension their respective massives.
- It's a nonsense verse used by everyone from boy scouts to football hooligans, including, presumably the Swansea massive.
Derivatives
massiveness
- If it hadn't been the right choice for my family there's no way I'd have been able to take on the massiveness of this job.
- So that he could appreciate the massiveness of the volcano, she took his hand and traced with him its profile on the horizon.
- But the very massiveness of these tumors, sometimes rivaling the size of their host, makes their seeming purposelessness all the more obvious.
Origin
Late Middle English: from French massif, -ive, from Old French massis, based on Latin massa (see mass).