Etymology

stupendous

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Today it means: Astonishingly great or large; huge; enormous. Full definition →

Late Latin stupendus
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The story

  1. Late Latin · borrowed fromstupendus“stunning, amazing”
  2. English todaystupendous

First attested from 1547, from Late Latin stupendus (“stunning, amazing”), from the verb stupeō (“(I) am stunned”). Doublet of stupend (which is obsolete), and related to stupor and stupid.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.