Enormous, Enormity

“There is research on the effects of 9/11, and you know, compared to the enormity of it, it didn't have a huge effect on people’s mood. They were going about their business, mostly.” –Daniel Kahneman
People blessed with enormous physique are often without a trace of enormity!

Is the USA teetering into enormity with new leadership taking over the reins of ruling the country: America first…
Enormous (adjective) and enormity (noun) have nothing in common: they have completely different meanings.

Kingsley Amis explained ‘enormity’ and ‘enormous’ in his book ‘The King’s English’: “Centuries ago these two words must already have begun to drift apart and now are as separate as their respective meanings, viz.

great wickedness (noun) and very large (adjective). When Milton wrote of Nature in Paradise pouring forth ‘enormous bliss’ he was making a learned pun, giving a reminder of the Latin roots (ex- or e- = out of, norma = norm, the ordinary) while testifying to the sheer size or quantity of the bliss.”

Enormous means something very large, big, extraordinarily large in size, extraordinarily large in extent, extraordinarily large in amount, extraordinarily large in power, extraordinarily large in degree, and something tremendous in size or extent or amount.

China is not only in an enormous country but it also has enormous population.

Do people with enormous physique have greater agility?
The derivatives of enormous are enormously (adverb) and enormousness (noun).
Enormous is derived from the Latin word ēnormis.
The opposite of enormous is small, little.

In South Asia, India is an enormous country while Bhutan is a small country.

Enormity is a noun.
Enormity means someone having the quality or attribute of extreme wickedness, vileness, ugliness. Someone committing an act of wickedness. Someone having the quality of being outrageous.

Enormity in the sense of wickedness and outrageousness has its roots in Middle French word ‘énormité’.

At one point of time, enormous and enormity have derived from the Latin word but with the influence of French’s ‘énormité’, they have gained distinct meanings.

Some dictionaries do note that one of the meanings of enormity is grandness, vastness, immense size but they also make it clear that usage in this sense is avoided for it can cause confusion. So, we have enormous and enormity with distinct meanings!

Who can tolerate someone’s enormity unless there is no choice?
How often do you come across enormity of people in your profession, and how do you handle it? However, you have the gift of enormous tolerance and enormous comprehension to deal with enormity of life and its manifestations.
-Kovuuri G Reddy