Five Kinds of Huge
Five already-known GRE words for enormous (colossal, gargantuan, prodigious, voluminous, innumerable) get compared side by side through five booths at a county fair, each huge in its own distinct way.
Step right up to the county fair, five giant wonders waiting there. Big can mean a hundred different things, follow the ringmaster and see what today brings.
Booth number one, a wheel of cheese, rolled in on a cart, rumbling with ease. Ten kids stand beside it, arms spread wide, still cannot reach from side to side. It took twelve cows an entire week, to fill a wheel this round and this deep. COLOSSAL means enormous, extremely grand, the biggest single thing in the land.
Booth number two makes booth one look small, a sundae stacked past the fairground wall. Whipped cream avalanche, cherries like boulders, a spoon the size of a lifeguard's shoulders. It is not simply large, it is big turned up loud, a joke-sized mountain that draws a crowd. GARGANTUAN means oversized, pushed past the brim, so enormous the whole tent strains at the seam.
Big, bigger, biggest, five different degrees, the fair holds more giant than the eye can believe. Some things are tall, some things are wide, each king-sized wonder wears its size with pride.
Booth number three, a single sunflower seed, planted on Monday, forgotten indeed. By Wednesday morning it towers past the tent, the whole fair gathers, amazed where it went. Nobody expected a stem to climb so fast, gasping and pointing, the crowd stands aghast. PRODIGIOUS means huge in a way that amazes, a jaw-dropping wonder that startles and dazes.
Booth number four is not tall at all, a bounce house billowing past the fence and wall. Not about height, it is about the air inside, room for thirty kids to tumble and slide. Loose and roomy, puffed up with space, a puffy balloon of a resting place. VOLUMINOUS means large with plenty of room, full and billowy, an air-filled cocoon.
Booth number five has nothing gigantic at all, a glass jar sitting on a wooden stall. "Guess how many jellybeans inside to win the prize," hundreds, or thousands, nobody is sure of the size. Count them by tens, you will lose your place, too many colors crowding too little space. INNUMERABLE means countless, too many to name, not one huge thing, but a number too wild to tame.
One is enormous, that is simply its size, one is oversized, a joke in disguise. One is amazing, in a way that astounds, one is roomy, puffed full, floating off the ground. One measures count instead of size, however many are there, a jar full of countless, more than you can compare. Five different fairgrounds, five different claims, size can mean a hundred different things.
Big, bigger, biggest, five different degrees, the fair holds more giant than the eye can believe. Some things are tall, some things are wide, each king-sized wonder wears its size with pride.
Colossal, gargantuan, prodigious, and grand, voluminous, innumerable, spread across the land. Fair closes down, five wonders take a bow, five kinds of huge, all different, all wow.
Key Concepts: colossal means extremely large, the plain baseline for huge | gargantuan means so enormous it becomes almost comically over the top | prodigious means impressively huge in a way that stuns and amazes | voluminous means full and roomy rather than tall, huge because of the space inside | innumerable means not one huge thing at all, but a countless number of things
Key Words: colossal, gargantuan, prodigious, voluminous, innumerable