What's the difference between colossal and gigantic?

Colossal


Definition:

  • (a.) Of enormous size; gigantic; huge; as, a colossal statue.
  • (a.) Of a size larger than heroic. See Heroic.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) "Businesses will be ecstatic at today's decision because the Games will bring a colossal one-off commercial boost to the entire country," said the group's president, Michael Cassidy.
  • (2) Mockingjay Part 1 may simply be suffering due to the huge success earlier this year of the latest Transformers movie, which made a colossal $301m in China .
  • (3) The Baltic nations, Ukraine and the countries of the southern Caucasus did not regain their independence until the final, colossal crash of the Soviet Union three years later.
  • (4) Still, the book, which was written by Blair himself rather than a ghostwriter and is scheduled for publication in September, has already earned him a colossal advance, said to be around £5m.
  • (5) The proposed rework was a “seriously retrograde step” – “a colossal mistake, and a dangerous one.” The opposition leader validated arguments Jewish groups, including the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, have raised this past week against the proposed RDA changes.
  • (6) Latest official figures seen by the Guardian, however, throw into sharp relief the colossal scale of the business, a back-office beehive of activity.
  • (7) The trio at the top – Lord Stevenson, the bank's chairman "from its birth to its death" and successive chief executives Sir James Crosby and Andy Hornby – were roundly blamed for the colossal failures that led to its collapse.
  • (8) For many City investors, however, these colossal payouts are not at all troubling.
  • (9) They punished aspiration by introducing tuition fees, saddled public services with long-term debt through the colossal rip-off of PFI, and began privatising our NHS – laying the foundations for some of the pernicious policies of this coalition as they did so.
  • (10) Former UN official accuses world body of 'colossal mismanagement' Read more While the UN provides shelter to about 200,000 people in their protection of civilians (POC) sites, the recent report is surely testament to the failure, at least in part, of this mandate, cataloguing horrific abuses against thousands of civilians.
  • (11) The colossal tarpaulin roof had actually been opened and closed regularly throughout the day, as if taunting those fans who could not attend the rescheduled game, as the locals sought to dry the surface so there was an irony this game kicked off with autumnal sunshine pouring through the concourse under the canopy.
  • (12) So for him to come along and lie to us and get that deep into our lives was a colossal, colossal betrayal."
  • (13) "It's a welcome decision but it also underscores what a colossal strategic blunder it was mov ing the News at Ten in the first place and allowing the BBC in to steal the slot."
  • (14) In their article, they argue: “The status quo is a colossal con perpetrated on the public by politicians who are too scared to break the taboo.” Portugal decriminalised all drugs at the turn of the century.
  • (15) Further investment would be required on the sections of route from Leamington Spa to Birmingham and between Leamington Spa and Coventry, but the cost of these improvements would be small change when set against the colossal bill for HS2.
  • (16) Unlike the colossal dead weight waste of giving winter fuel payments to the likes of me, EMA is tightly targeted.
  • (17) He has never dared refute the Institute for Fiscal Studies' predictions of 500,000 more children made poor as a direct result of his colossal £18bn benefit cuts.
  • (18) The west's inaction in the face of the pending Ba'athist and Shia Islamist victory amounts to a colossal failure of leadership.
  • (19) The vote was seen as vital for Greece to press ahead with austerity measures and avoid defaulting on its colossal €355bn (£297bn) debt.
  • (20) The war was either a colossal mistake or a struggle for important principles.

Gigantic


Definition:

  • (a.) Of extraordinary size; like a giant.
  • (a.) Such as a giant might use, make, or cause; immense; tremendous; extraordinarly; as, gigantic deeds; gigantic wickedness.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) It was an artwork that fired the imaginations of 2 million visitors who played with, were provoked by and plunged themselves into the curious atmosphere of The Weather Project , with its swirling mist and gigantic mirrors that covered the hall's ceiling.
  • (2) Primary thrombocythaemia is to be distinguished from the secondary type by higher counts of megakaryocytes especially of atypic and gigantic forms of these cells, showing up in adequate histological preparations of bone marrow biopsies.
  • (3) Endless utilitarian apartment blocks and gigantic hotels sprawl seemingly at random in the so-called "coastal cluster".
  • (4) A case of cerebral gigantism with hydronephrosis in a 20-month-old boy is described.
  • (5) Meanwhile he is preparing a new double piano concerto by Kevin Volans with the Labèque sisters for a concert at the Edinburgh festival next week, and he tells me with a glint in his eye about ideas for the next two seasons: concert performances of Don Giovanni this October, more Brahms symphonies, and more Berlioz – an ambitious plan to realise the gigantic drama of Roméo and Juliette on a chamber-orchestral scale, following up his rapturously received performances of L'Enfance du Christ in February.
  • (6) The gigantic lintels that bridge the uprights were also elaborately worked to even their size and height.
  • (7) Near the entrance was a sprawling camp kitchen, with mountains of supplies, indoor and outdoor facilities and open fires on which some of the cooking was done, and all of the gigantic vats of coffee seemed to be boiled.
  • (8) But if states cannot trust that their citizens' personal data – as well as sensitive commercial and government information – will not be swept up in a gigantic global surveillance operation, this may be a price they are willing to pay.
  • (9) However, the most spectacular fundraiser was not the auction room but a wedding, when the ninth duke married the American railroad heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt, securing a gigantic dowry, a fortune in shares and an annual allowance.
  • (10) This case indicates that the ataxia in cerebral gigantism may be, at least partly, caused by cerebellar atrophy.
  • (11) An 8-year-old boy with an uncorrected ventricular septal defect, pulmonary stenosis, mental retardation, and gigantism died 24 hours after partial resection of a large right-sided Wilms' tumor.
  • (12) In Britain business success usually means growth to gigantic and unmanageable size.
  • (13) This tumor is rare in children and has never, to our knowledge, been recorded in a patient with cerebral gigantism.
  • (14) Progressive preoperative pneumoperitoneum, combined when necessary with Marlex mesh to obviate tension, enables closure of even gigantic defects.
  • (15) Simply, Apple is a gigantic company, and iOS in particular is seen as being at a crossroads: Android has overtaken it in sales terms and many critics say it offers users more flexibility – so what's Apple going to do to stop the iPhone looking fusty?
  • (16) Climate change itself will have a gigantic impact on our economy which will be nothing to do with the carbon bubble.
  • (17) If we could rediscover that sense of harmony; that sense of being a part of, rather than apart from nature, we would perhaps be less likely to see the world as some sort of gigantic production system, capable of ever-increasing outputs for our benefit – at no cost."
  • (18) The morphological changes recorded from cells damaged by virus infection included the formation of gigant syncytial cells and intranuclear inclusions of Cowdry Type A.
  • (19) Spores of both parasites are oviform; those of M. acanthocephali are gigantic, 12-14 micron long and 6-7 micron broad, those of M. propinqui are only 3-4 micron X 1.25-1.50 micron.
  • (20) Indian media have raised concerns that Beijing may ultimately embark on a gigantic diversion scheme that would channel water away from India to the dry northern plains of China, but such fears are dismissed by Tsering, who says the dam at Metog would be for hydropower, not water diversion.