momentous

comparative more momentous · superlative most momentous

1. Outstanding in importance, of great consequence.

   "It has been a momentous month, and I hope we shall all retain healthful recollections of it as long as we live."

   1831, James Fenimore Cooper, chapter 31, in Homeward Bound

   4 more examples

   The reason why I did not publish this book till the end of the last sessions of parliament was, because I did not care to interfere with more momentous affairs.

   1725, Daniel Defoe, Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business

   What to the other parties was merely the sale of a ship was to him a momentous event involving a radically new view of existence.

   1902, Joseph Conrad, chapter 3, in The End of the Tether

   The last train ran on December 31, 1932, almost unnoticed, for it coincided with the running of the last steam passenger train down the main line from London to Brighton, a much more momentous event.

   1952 December, R. C. Riley, “By Rail to Kemp Town”, in Railway Magazine, page 835

   Natural selection is arguably the most momentous idea ever to occur to a human mind, because it — alone as far as we know — explains the elegant illusion of design that pervades the living kingdoms and explains, in passing, us.

   2007 July 1, Richard Dawkins, “Inferior Design”, in New York Times, retrieved 19 Nov 2013