vast
pronunciation
How to pronounce vast in British English:
UK [vɑːst]
How to pronounce vast in American English:
US [væst]
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- Adjective:
- unusually great in size or amount or degree or especially extent or scope
Word Origin
- vast
- vast: [16] Latin vastus originally meant ‘empty, unoccupied, deserted’. The sense ‘huge’, in which English borrowed it, is a secondary semantic development. Another metaphorical route took it to ‘ravaged, destroyed’, in which sense it lies behind English devastate and waste.=> devastate, waste
- vast (adj.)
- 1570s, "being of great extent or size," from Middle French vaste, from Latin vastus "immense, extensive, huge," also "desolate, unoccupied, empty." The two meanings probably originally attached to two separate words, one with a long -a- one with a short -a-, that merged in early Latin (see waste (v.)). Meaning "very great in quantity or number" is from 1630s; that of "very great in degree" is from 1670s. Very popular early 18c. as an intensifier. Related: Vastly; vastness; vasty.
Synonym
Antonym
Example
- 1. There are also vast sums at stake .
- 2. And who would take on belgium 's vast debt ?
- 3. Essay writing is a vast field with different types .
- 4. Vast chinese stitching-shops have no such worries .
- 5. Vast capital inflows can harm economies in several ways .