Note: The translation for this entry is currently under quality review. Some content is temporarily displayed in English only.
large
/ˈlɑːd͡ʒ/
When used as an adjective, "large" describes physical size or quantity. It is the opposite of "small." In most cases, you can use "big" and "large" interchangeably. However, "large" often sounds slightly more formal than "big." The phrase "on the large" is a less common adverbial usage meaning "mostly" or "for the most part." It is used to describe a general situation rather than a specific object.
💬Casual Conversation
I'm totally zoning out. Need a large iced coffee or I'll crash.
Get your act together. We have three chapters left.
Meanings
Examples
They live in a large house on the edge of town.
The project was, on the large, a complete success.
God, this large dog is literally eating my shoes!
I'll take a large latte with an extra shot, please.
Look at this large crack in the ceiling! Fix it!
I just need a large coffee before I can even think.
Wait, is that large suitcase actually yours? It's huge!
We need a large table for ten people, right now.
That's a large amount of laundry for one person, honey.
The city is large, but I still feel totally lost.
Collocations & Compounds
large scale
Taking place on a wide scope or involving many people/elements.
large amount
A considerable quantity of something.
large sum
A significant amount of money.
at large
As a whole; or, in the case of a criminal, not yet captured.
large proportion
A significant part of a whole.
Idioms & Sayings
at large
Not confined or imprisoned; escaped from custody.
at large
As a whole; speaking for the entire group (e.g., 'the public at large').
larger than life
More imposing or colorful than an ordinary person.
Cultural Context
Deep beneath the border of France and Switzerland lies one of the most ambitious engineering feats in human history: the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This circular tunnel, stretching 27 kilometers in circumference, is not merely a piece of machinery; it is a portal designed to unlock the primordial secrets of the universe. By accelerating protons to nearly the speed of light and smashing them together in high-energy collisions, physicists attempt to recreate the conditions that existed mere fractions of a second after the Big Bang.
The sheer scale of the LHC is what makes it truly 'large' in every sense of the word—not just in its physical dimensions, but in its scientific ambition. To maintain the stability of the particle beams, the collider utilizes superconducting magnets cooled to temperatures colder than outer space, specifically 1.9 Kelvin. This extreme environment allows scientists to probe the fundamental building blocks of matter, leading to the historic discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012. The Higgs boson is the particle that gives other particles their mass, effectively explaining why the universe has substance rather than being a collection of massless rays zipping through a void.
Beyond the technical specifications, there is a profound human psychology at play here: our innate desire to understand the 'large' picture of existence. Why does the universe exist? What happened at the moment of inception? By compressing an immense amount of energy into a microscopic point, the LHC allows us to look backward in time. It represents the pinnacle of international collaboration, where thousands of scientists from diverse cultures set aside geopolitical differences to pursue a singular, universal truth.
In the end, the Large Hadron Collider teaches us a humbling lesson about perspective. While the machine is an enormous monument to human ingenuity, it serves only to reveal how infinitesimal we are compared to the vastness of the cosmos. It is a bridge between the macro-world of engineering and the micro-world of quantum mechanics, proving that in science, sometimes you need something incredibly large to see the smallest things.