This shows grade level based on the word’s complexity. Big steel wants to lower prices, but the smaller mills don’t. Nouvelle cuisine became big big bear beef jerky the 1970s.

Chiefly South Midland and Southern U. WILL YOU SAIL OR STUMBLE ON THESE GRAMMAR QUESTIONS? Smoothly step over to these common grammar mistakes that trip many people up. Fill in the blank: I can’t figure out _____ gave me this gift. Mother is big on family get-togethers. What is a basic definition of big? Big describes something that is large in height, weight, size, or amount.

Big can also describe something that is significant or, informally, something that is popular. Big has many other senses as an adjective and a few as an adverb and a noun. Big can describe things that are tall, wide, massive, or plentiful. It’s a synonym of words such as large, great, and huge, describing something as being notably high in number or scale in some way. Real-life examples: The Grand Canyon is a big hole in the ground.

You would need a big box to hold 300 books. Used in a sentence: The restaurant brought out a big table to seat all 30 of us. Big also describes something that is very important, worrisome, alarming, influential, or similarly worthy of notice. Real-life examples: Jumping out of a plane without a parachute is a big mistake. A comet hitting Earth would be a big issue. The discovery of life on Mars would be big news.

Used in a sentence: The mold in our house turned into a big problem when we found out it was toxic. Big is used informally to mean that something is popular or widely known. Real-life examples: Disco was big in the 1970s. The internet started to become big in the 1990s when computers became affordable and connection speeds improved. Used in a sentence: The actor was big 10 years ago but now nobody knows who he is.