Great means large, impressive, or excellent. A great wave towers over a surfer. A great scientist makes discoveries that change how we understand the world. A great pizza tastes so good you remember it weeks later.

The word carries a sense of being beyond ordinary or average. Great suggests something notable enough to stand out. When your teacher calls your essay great, she means it exceeds her expectations. When historians talk about Alexander the Great or Catherine the Great, they mean these rulers accomplished extraordinary things that shaped history.

Great can describe size (a great hall in a castle), importance (a great discovery), or quality (a great performance). Sometimes it simply means “very” or “a lot,” as in great big or a great many. You might feel great after a good night's sleep, meaning you feel energetic and healthy.

People also use great for family relationships that skip a generation: your grandmother's mother is your great-grandmother, and her mother would be your great-great-grandmother.

The word appears in phrases like the great outdoors (wild nature) or great minds think alike (said when two people have the same clever idea). When something is excellent but not perfect, you might call it pretty great or really great, showing how we adjust the word to express different levels of enthusiasm.