great

great worry

“We are engaged in a great work, a treatise on our river fortifications, perhaps? But since when did army officers afford the luxury of amanuenses in this simple republic?”

1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

The first half of this century has been referred to as the golden age of medicine. To me it seems more probable that we are on the threshold of a much greater age.

1951 March, John W. Cline, “The Future of Medicine”, in Northwest Medicine, volume 50, number 3, Portland, Ore.: Northwest Medical Publishing Association, page 165:

(of an abstract noun) Much, more than usual.

Taking much space; large.
Much, more than usual.

a dirty great smack in the face

Great Scott!

(informal, British) Intensifying a word or expression, used in mild oaths.

“[…] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people that they don't know at all well. You know. The kind that have mottoes like // Here's rattling good luck and roaring good cheer, / With lashings of food and great hogsheads of beer.[…]”

1921, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:

‘Children crawled over each other like little grey worms in the gutters,’ he said. ‘The only red things about them were their buttocks and they were raw. Their faces looked as if snails had slimed on them and their mothers were like great sick beasts whose byres had never been cleared.[…]’

1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 7, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

Hidden behind thickets of acronyms and gorse bushes of detail, a new great game is under way across the globe. Some call it geoeconomics, but it's geopolitics too. The current power play consists of an extraordinary range of countries simultaneously sitting down to negotiate big free trade and investment agreements.

2013 July 19, Timothy Garton Ash, “Where Dr Pangloss meets Machiavelli”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 18:

Dinner was great.

He was thinking; but the glory of the song, the swell from the great organ, the clustered lights,[…], the height and vastness of this noble fane, its antiquity and its strength—all these things seemed to have their part as causes of the thrilling emotion that accompanied his thoughts.

1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter V, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

(informal) Very good; excellent; wonderful; fantastic.

a great dilemma

a great decision

So the King made Daniel a great man […]

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Daniel 2:48:

The Dawn is over-caſt, the Morning low’rs,
And heavily in Clouds brings on the Day,
The great, th’ important Day; big with the Fate
Of Cato and of Rome.

1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act I, scene i, page 1:

The methods for finding parameters that are commonly used in RBC models include using coefficients that come from microeconomic studies for parameters like the time discount factor, rental income over total income for the parameters of a Cobb-Douglas production function, and adjusting parameters so that stationary state value values approach those of the great ratios such as consumption over income and capital over income.

2008, George McCandless, The ABCs of RBCs, Harvard University Press, page 2:

great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather, great-great-great-grandfather

(qualifying nouns of family relationship) Involving more generations than the qualified word implies — as many extra generations as repetitions of the word great (from 1510s). [see Derived terms]

great with child

great with hope

the ewes great with young

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Psalms 78:71:

(obsolete, postpositive, followed by 'with') Pregnant; large with young; full of.

those that are so great with him

1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Followers and Friends”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC:

(obsolete, except with 'friend' and similar words such as 'mate', 'buddy') Intimate; familiar.

except with 'friend' and similar words such as 'mate'; 'buddy'; except with 'friend' and similar words such as 'mate'; 'buddy'

a great deed

a great nature

a great history

(applied to actions, thoughts and feelings) Arising from or possessing idealism; admirable; commanding; illustrious; eminent.

applied to actions; thoughts and feelings; applied to actions; thoughts and feelings

a great show of wealth

Poetry was a great convention of the Romantic era.

a great hero, scholar, genius, philosopher, writer, etc.

(applied to persons) Of much talent or achievements.

What a great buffoon!

He’s not a great one for reading.

a great walker

Doing or exemplifying (a characteristic or pursuit) on a large scale; active or enthusiastic.

en-adj

great (comparative greater, superlative greatest)

greater (comparative)
greatest (superlative)

behind every great man there stands a woman

→ Welsh: grêt

From Middle English greet (“great, large”), from Old English grēat (“big, thick, coarse, massive”), from Proto-West Germanic *graut, from Proto-Germanic *grautaz (“big in size, coarse, coarse grained”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrewd-, *gʰer- (“to rub, grind, remove”).
Cognate with Scots great (“coarse in grain or texture, thick, great”), West Frisian grut (“large, great”), Dutch groot (“large, stour”), German groß (“large”), Old English grēot (“earth, sand, grit”). Related to grit. Doublet of gross.


great

Great! Thanks for the wonderful work.

2016, VOA Learning English (public domain)
—I am in my new apartment! —Great!
Audio (US): (file)

Expression of gladness and content about something.

Oh, great! I just dumped all 500 sheets of the manuscript all over and now I have to put them back in order.


great

Newton and Einstein are two of the greats of the history of science.

Sadio Mané wasted a glorious chance in the first half and, late on, Mohamed Salah turned his shot against a post after a goal-line clearance had spun his way. That, in a nutshell, perhaps sums up the difference between Messi and the players on the next rung below – the ones who can be described as great footballers without necessarily being football greats.

2019 May 1, Daniel Taylor, The Guardian:

A person of major significance, accomplishment or acclaim.

(music) The main division in a pipe organ, usually the loudest division.

My three-greats grandmother.

(in combinations such as "two-greats", "three-greats" etc.) An instance of the word "great" signifying an additional generation in phrases expressing family relationships.

mediocre

antonym(s) of “person of major significance, accomplishment or acclaim”


great

Those mechanical colored pencils work great because they don’t have to be sharpened.

(informal) Very well (in a very satisfactory manner).