colossal
/kəˈlɑsəl/adjective
colossal is spelled C-O-L-O-S-S-A-L. The wrong spelling people search most is collosal: about 240 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 13 of all searches for the word. Colossal is an adjective meaning “Extremely large or on a great scale”.
How many letters and syllables are in colossal?
| Letters | 8: C-O-L-O-S-S-A-L |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 2.3 times per million words; the 17,813th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, collosal, about 240 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell colossal?
Colossal is spelled C-O-L-O-S-S-A-L. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 13 of the searches for colossal in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is colossal?
Colossal appears 2.3 times per million words in written English, the 17,813th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce colossal?
- UK /kəˈlɒsəl/
- US /kəˈlɑsəl/
- Canada /kəˈlɒsəl/
Colossal has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-colossal.ogg, En-au-colossal.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with colossal?
3 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as colossal from its last stressed vowel (/ɑsəl/):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of colossal
- more colossal comparative
- most colossal superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does colossal mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Extremely large or on a great scale.
A single puppy can make a colossal mess.
- 2
Amazingly spectacular; extraordinary; epic.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Colossal in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense extremely large:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | colossal |
| German | riesig, gewaltig, immens, kolossal, riesengroß, ungeheuer |
| Portuguese | colossal |
| Spanish | colosal, descomunal |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does colossal come from?
From French colossal, formed from Latin colossus, from Ancient Greek κολοσσός (kolossós, “giant statue”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).