voluminous

What it means

1. Of or pertaining to volume or volumes.
2. Consisting of many folds, coils, or convolutions.

   I remember that the Baroness was clad in a voluminous silk dress, pale grey in colour, and adorned with flounces and a crinoline and train.

   1867, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, chapter VI, in The Gambler, translated by C. J. Hogarth^(https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Gambler_(1867)/VI)

   1 more example

   Like the Cuscus of the Moluccas, the Galeopithecus feeds chiefly on leaves, and possesses a very voluminous stomach and long convoluted intestines. The brain is very small, and the animal possesses such remarkable tenacity of life, that it is exceedingly difficult to kill it by any ordinary means.

   1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page 211

3. Of great volume, or bulk; large.

   Matters of a much more extraordinary kind are to be the subject of this history, or I should grossly mis-spend my time in writing so voluminous a work […]

   1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

   1 more example

   Lukács's voluminous works are devoted for the most part to questions of aesthetics and literary criticism; but it would be wrong to say that he was a critic first and foremost and a philosopher only in a lesser degree.

   1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume III: The Breakdown, Oxford: Clarendon Press, translation of Główne nurty marksizmu: rozkład (in Polish), →ISBN, →OCLC, page 254

   Synonyms: capacious

In a sentence

I remember that the Baroness was clad in a voluminous silk dress, pale grey in colour, and adorned with flounces and a crinoline and train.

1867, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, chapter VI, in The Gambler, translated by C. J. Hogarth^(https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Gambler_(1867)/VI)

Where it comes from

1. Late Latinvoluminosus
2. Englishvoluminous

From Late Latin voluminosus, from volumen, from volvō (“roll, turn about”) + -men (noun-forming suffix). Related to volume.