great

ENEnglish
//ˈɡɹeɪt//(General American, Received Pronunciation)

Direct German Translations & Equivalents:

Click any term below to jump straight to its full vocabulary entry in German:

Definitions & Usage

adjective
#1

Taking much space; large.

adjective
#2

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

Example: Dinner was great.
adjective
#3

Important, consequential.

Example: a great dilemma
Example: a great decision
adjective
#4

(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]

Example: great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather, great-great-great-grandfather
Translations:
adjective
#5

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

Example: great with child
Example: great with hope
adjective
#6

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

adjective
#7

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

Example: a great deed
Example: a great nature
adjective
#8

Impressive or striking.

Example: a great show of wealth
adjective
#9

Much in use; favoured.

Example: Poetry was a great convention of the Romantic era.
adjective
#10

(applied to persons) Of much talent or achievements.

Example: a great hero, scholar, genius, philosopher, writer, etc.
adjective
#11

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

Example: What a great buffoon!
Example: He’s not a great one for reading.
interjection
#12

Expression of gladness and content about something.

Example: Great! Thanks for the wonderful work.
Example: —I am in my new apartment! —Great!
interjection
#13

A sarcastic inversion thereof.

Example: Oh, great! I just dumped all 500 sheets of the manuscript all over and now I have to put them back in order.
noun
#14

A person of major significance, accomplishment or acclaim.

Example: Newton and Einstein are two of the greats of the history of science.
Translations:[DE]Größe
noun
#15

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

noun
#16

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

Example: My three-greats grandmother.
adverb
#17

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

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

Notable Literary & Historical Quotes

“[…] 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:

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