Meanings
- A fictional country inhabited by giants, which appears in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels.
[…] if this Treatiſe ſhould happen to be tranſlated into the language of Brobdingnag (which is the general name of that Kingdom) and tranſmitted thither, the King and his People would have reaſon to complain that I had done them an Injury by a falſe and diminutive Repreſentation.
1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Country Described. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume I, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part II (A Voyage to Brobdingnag), page [225]1 more example
The satire takes a new twist when, on his second voyage, Gulliver visits Brobdingnag, whose inhabitants tower above him. The boot is now on the other foot, and it is Gulliver who is exposed as diminutive of stature and understanding alike. The Brobdingnagians furthermore excite Swift's disgust at the flesh. Their very grossness exaggerates all the minute flaws and hideousness normally concealed from the eye by the limitations of human vision.
2003, Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason, Ch.9, at p.151
Cite this entry
Brobdingnag. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Brobdingnag
“Brobdingnag.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Brobdingnag. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Brobdingnag,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Brobdingnag.
Source: Brobdingnag on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.