English
Alternative spellings
larger than life
Adjective
en-adj|pos=larger-than-life|-
#Of greater size or magnitude than is naturally or normally the case.
#*1838, w:Charles_Dickens|Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, ch. 30,
#*:Miss Snevellicci's papa looked very big indeed�several sizes larger than life.
#*1849, w:Herman_Melville|Herman Melville, Redburn: His First Voyage, ch. 31,
#*:At uniform intervals round the base of the pedestal, four naked figures in chains, somewhat larger than life, are seated in various attitudes of humiliation and despair.
#context|idiom|usually of a person Very imposing, renowned, or impressively influential.
#*1988, w:Joyce_Carol_Oates|Joyce Carol Oates, "Intellectual Seduction: Meeting with Gorbachev," New York Times, 3 Jan., p. SM16,
#*:This is a person of surpassing integrity; a man of the utmost sincerity; somewhat larger than life, perhaps.
#*2007, Orville Schell, "Person of the Year Runners-up: Hu Jintao," Time, 31 Dec.,
#*:Nor has he cultivated the kind of flamboyant style with which his country became well acquainted in larger-than-life leaders from Chiang Kai-shek to Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.
Related terms
bigger-than-life
Category:English adjectives
vi:larger-than-life
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