GREATNESS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does greatness mean? 

• GREATNESS (noun)
  The noun GREATNESS has 2 senses:

1. the property possessed by something or someone of outstanding importance or eminence

2. unusual largeness in size or extent or number

  Familiarity information: GREATNESS used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GREATNESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The property possessed by something or someone of outstanding importance or eminence

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

greatness; illustriousness

Hypernyms ("greatness" is a kind of...):

importance (the quality of being important and worthy of note)

Derivation:

great (of major significance or importance)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Unusual largeness in size or extent or number

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

enormousness; grandness; greatness; immenseness; immensity; sizeableness; vastness; wideness

Hypernyms ("greatness" is a kind of...):

bigness; largeness (the property of having a relatively great size)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "greatness"):

enormity (vastness of size or extent)

Derivation:

great (relatively large in size or number or extent; larger than others of its kind)

great (remarkable or out of the ordinary in degree or magnitude or effect)

 Context examples 

He could do little during the day, for Murillo took every precaution and never went out save with his satellite Lucas, or Lopez as he was known in the days of his greatness.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The greatness of sensation is mutual.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He saw Lizzie occasionally, and it was patent that she regretted the greatness that had come to him.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Greatness in size or extent; a number assigned to a quantity so that it may be compared with other quantities.

(Magnitude, NCI Thesaurus)

He seems to feel his own worth and the greatness of his fall.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

He felt the greatness and goodness of his purpose so sincerely: others who heard him plead for it, could not but feel it too.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But Buck possessed a quality that made for greatness—imagination.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Then after a short silence he continued: Lizzy, I bear you no ill-will for being justified in your advice to me last May, which, considering the event, shows some greatness of mind.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Greatness will not make me so.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Wife, said the fisherman, as he looked at all this greatness, are you pope?

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)