grandeur

Borrowed from Middle French grandeur, from Old French grandur, from grant (French grand), from Latin grandis (“grown up, great”).

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɹæn.d͡ʒɚ/, /ˈɡɹæn.d͡ʒʊɚ/, /ˈɡɹæn.d(j)ʊɚ/, /ˈɡɹæn.d(j)ɚ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

  • Homophone: grander (one pronunciation)

grandeur (countable and uncountable, plural grandeurs)

1. The state of being grand or splendid; magnificence.
   • 1829, Edgar Allan Poe, “Tamerlane”, in Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems:

     I wrapp’d myself in grandeur then,
     And donn’d a visionary crown ——

   • 2020 August 26, Tim Dunn, “Great railway bores of our time!”, in Rail, page 44:

     So much of what followed from the drawing boards of others will have been designed with the demands, effort and grandeur of Primrose Hill [tunnel] in the back of their minds.

2. Nobility (state of being noble).
3. (archaic, rare) Greatness; largeness; tallness; loftiness.

• John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “grandeur”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.

Old French grandur, from grand +‎ -eur.

• IPA^(key): /ɡʁɑ̃.dœʁ/

• Audio (France, Paris)

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• Homophone: grandeurs

grandeur f (plural grandeurs)

1. size
2. (physics, mathematics) magnitude, quantity
3. (astronomy) magnitude
4. grandeur

• folie des grandeurs
• grandeur d'âme
• grandeur nature
• ordre de grandeur
• Votre Grandeur

• taille
• largeur
• hauteur

• “grandeur”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

From Old French grandur.

• IPA^(key): /ɡʀã.døːʀ/

grandeur f (plural grandeurs)

1. size