Tremendous means extremely large, or impressively great. A tremendous amount, tremendous effort, a tremendous noise.
In British English it is also warm general praise — that is tremendous — meaning excellent rather than large. It works well before nouns like effort, success, courage and support. Note tremendously, which is common before adjectives: tremendously useful; and that the word originally meant causing trembling, which is why it still suits things that are frighteningly big as well as pleasingly good.
1adjectivetremendousExtremely large or great.
“There was a tremendous crash and then complete silence.”
2adjectiveexcellentExcellent.
“She has been tremendous throughout the whole thing.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
tremendous is a degree of greatness.
Also accepted in games: enormous
Latin tremendus means to be trembled at, from tremere, to tremble — the same verb behind tremble, tremor and tremulous. Tremendous once meant terrifying, and the modern compliment is a very thorough softening.
Built from
tremendus + -ous. a doublet of tremend.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA