Literary notes about Prodigious (AI summary)
In literature, "prodigious" is employed to evoke a sense of overwhelming magnitude or exceptional quality. It often emphasizes the extraordinary nature of physical objects, as when towering walls or vast edifices inspire awe ([1], [2]) or when natural formations exhibit remarkable scale ([3], [4]). Equally, it accentuates abstract attributes such as immense effort, strength, or emotion, whether in describing the painstaking labor required to complete a work ([5]) or the superhuman force of a character's action ([6]). Authors also apply the term to quantities and proportions, as seen in references to vast majorities or expenses ([7], [8]), thereby infusing their narratives with a dramatic intensity that highlights the surpassing and sometimes marvelously mysterious aspects of the subject matter ([9], [10]).
- There was a large wall to both the cloisters, which wall was itself the most prodigious work that was ever heard of by man.
— from Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus - We hurried across the ravine and up a winding road, and stood on the old Acropolis, with the prodigious walls of the citadel towering above our heads.
— from The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain - Its prodigious height, and its form, resembling a sugar-loaf, filled me with wonder.
— from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African by Equiano - Some of the trees were of prodigious height.
— from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - With prodigious pains and constant study he completed that celebrated work in eleven years.
— from Fox's Book of Martyrs by John Foxe - But Ajax in turn caught up a far larger stone, swung it aloft, and hurled it with prodigious force.
— from The Iliad by Homer - They straightway elected Brigham Young President, by a prodigious majority, and have never faltered in their devotion to him from that day to this.
— from Roughing It by Mark Twain - An incredible number of animals of various kinds were brought from all quarters, at a prodigious expense, for the entertainment of the people.
— from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Suetonius - The whole of this prodigious city is a foreshortening of dead manners and living manners.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo - There is a prodigious selfishness in dreams: they live perfectly deaf and invulnerable amid the cries of the real world.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana
