What does tremendous mean?
Word: Tremendous
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Tremendous means very great in size, amount or strength; also, in everyday speech, extremely good.
Synonyms: huge, enormous, immense
Antonyms: slight
Word origin: From Latin tremere, to shake.
How do you spell tremendous?
Syllables: tre - men - dous
Tricky part: Many students add an i before the ending (tremendious), perhaps from words like delicious. There is no i at all.
Watch out for: tremendious, tremendus
Memory tip: Picture a tremendous elephant standing in a doorway, so big that no i can squeeze past it into the ending.
Tremendous in a sentence
Example 1: The new bridge has been a tremendous help to villagers who once crossed by boat.
Example 2: There was a tremendous crash as the shelf of steel plates fell.
Example 3: Priya made tremendous progress in Latin this year.
Fun Fact
Tremendous first described things so terrible they made people tremble. The cheerful sense of very good arrived only in the last two centuries.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Cookie
Fill in the missing letters to complete the word:
tr_m_ndous
a) i, e
b) e, a
c) a, e
d) e, e
Show answer
d) e, e. Both missing vowels are e's, the first as in tremble.
Word Connection
Choose the antonym of the word tremendous as used in the sentence:
The new library has a tremendous collection of books on space.
a) vast
b) remarkable
c) massive
d) tiny
Show answer
d) tiny. Vast, massive and remarkable all praise a big collection; a tiny one would hardly fill a shelf.
Mingle-Mangle
Unjumble the letters to find the word that fits the sentence:
The crowd gave a smeundoetr cheer when our team scored in the last minute.
a) tremendous
b) stupendous
c) horrendous
d) tremulous
Show answer
a) tremendous. An h, a p or an l would be needed for horrendous, stupendous or tremulous, and the jumble has none of them.
Spell-o-Spell
Three of these words are spelt correctly. Choose the meaning of the misspelt word:
1. applause 2. stadium 3. tremendous 4. comentary
a) very great in size, amount or force
b) a sports ground with rows of seats
c) the clapping of an audience after a show
d) a spoken report on a match as it happens
Show answer
d) a spoken report on a match as it happens. Commentary needs a double m, as in comment.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. A boy with a tremendous appetite ____.
a) eats only fruit
b) skips every lunch
c) hardly eats at all
d) eats a great deal
Show answer
d) eats a great deal
2. Which phrase uses tremendous in its everyday praising sense?
a) a tremendous wave crashing on the rocks
b) a tremendous roar of thunder at night
c) a tremendous show by our school band
d) a tremendous weight of wet sand
Show answer
c) a tremendous show by our school band
