Often incorrectly brobdignag. The name given by Swift in Gulliver’s Travels to an imaginary country where everything was on a gigantic scale. Hence used attrib. as: Of, or pertaining to, that country; of huge dimensions; immense; gigantic.
(Swift subsequently wrote a mock letter from ‘Captain Gulliver’ to his cousin Sympson (purporting to be dated 27 April 1727, but first published in Dublin ed. 1735), complaining that Brobdingnag had been erroneously printed for Brobdingrag; but this was only a feint to mystify the public by a pretended solicitude for minute accuracy. The early editions have all Brobdingnag. See Craik, Life of Swift (1882), 535–7.)
1731. Pope, Mor. Ess., iv. 104. Such a draught As brings all Brobdignag before your thought.
1814. Southey, in Q. Rev., XI. 65. The houses … have the appearance of Brobdignag beehives.
1840. Carlyle, Heroes, I. 56. Huge untutored Brobdignag genius.
1922. Kansas City Star, 21 Aug., 16/3. He [Paul Bunyan] is the Gargantua, the Brobdingnag, the Munchausen, the Old Bill, rolled into one, of the world of the tall timbers.
Hence Brobdingnagian a. and sb. Also -dignagian, -naggian. a. adj. = BROBDINGNAG.
1728. Morgan, Algiers, II. v. 319. Brobdingnaggian Leagues would scarce suffice.
1797. Godwin, Enquirer, I. vii. 61. The final triumph of my Brobdingnagian persecutor.
1870. Disraeli, Lothair, lxxxi. 428. A bran-new brobdignagian hotel.
1881. Grant Allen, Evolutionist at Large, i. Known to our Brobdingnagian intelligence as grains of sand.
b. sb. An inhabitant of Brobdingnag, a giant, a person of huge size.
1729. T. Cooke, Tales, Prop. &c. 119. In Wit we Brobdignaggians are.
1835. T. Hook, G. Gurney, II. v. (L.). ‘Sally!’ screamed the Brobdingnagian … ‘a gentleman wants a bed!’
