Adjective

(en-adj)

Very large or wide (literally or figuratively).

The Sahara desert is vast .

There is a vast difference between them.

Very great in size, amount, degree, intensity, or especially extent.

* {{quote-magazine, year=2012, month=March-April

, author=Anna Lena Phillips , title=Sneaky Silk Moths , volume=100, issue=2, page=172 , magazine=(American Scientist) citation , passage=Last spring, the periodical cicadas emerged across eastern North America. Their vast numbers and short above-ground life spans inspired awe and irritation in humans—and made for good meals for birds and small mammals.}}

(obsolete) Waste; desert; desolate; lonely.

* William Shakespeare, the Life and Death of Richard the Third Act I, scene IV:

the empty, vast , and wandering air

Adjective

(en adjective)

Of or pertaining to Brobdingnag.

(figuratively) Enormous, huge, far larger than is customary for such a thing.

* 1899 , Israel Zangwill, "They that Walk in Darkness": Ghetto Tragedies (page 289)

When, at the head-centre, the lady demonstrator, armed with a Brobdingnagian whalebone needle, threaded with a bright red cord, executed herringboned fantasias on a canvas frame resembling a violin stand, it all looked easy enough.

* 1907 , , "Glamour" in His Own People ,

The two men followed Madame de Vaurigard into a square hall, hung with tapestries and lit by two candles of a Brobdingnagian species Mellin had heretofore seen only in cathedrals.

* 2010 , (Christopher Hitchens), Hitch-22 , Atlantic 2011, p. 52:

Again I stress the matter of sheer scale: the teachers were enormous compared to us and this lent a Brobdingnagian aspect to the scene.