Words at Play : Words that Come from Characters in Books
Definition:
: of tremendous size or volume
About the Word:
Gargantuan comes from the title character of the 1535 satire by Rabelais, Gargantua.
In this work, Gargantua is a giant with a ravening appetite (eating, for instance, six pilgrims in a salad). The name appears to have been first converted into an adjective in 1596, by Thomas Nash, who wrote:
"But when I came to unrip and unbumbast this Gargantuan bag-pudding, and found nothing in it, but dog-tripes, swine-livers, oxe galls, and sheepes guts, I was in a bitterer chafe than anie Cooke at a long Sermon when his meate burnes."
Example:
"These students were regaling themselves upon a Gargantuan gammon of ham and a flask of malvoisie." — Fraser's Magazine, July - December 1836
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