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Garganʹtuan

.

Enormous, inordinate, great beyond all limits. It needed 900 ells of Châtelleraut linen to make the body of his shirt, and 200 more for the gussets; for his shoes 406 ells of blue and crimson velvet were required, and 1,100 cow-hides for the soles. He could play 207 different games, picked his teeth with an elephant’s tusk, and did everything in the same “large way.”

“It sounded like a Gargantuan order for a dram.”—The Standard.

A Gargantuan course of studies. A course including all languages, as well ancient as modern, all the sciences, all the -ologies and -onomies, together with calisthenics and athletic sports. Gargantua wrote to his son Pantagruel, commanding him to learn Greek, Latin, Chaldaic, Arabic; all history, geometry, arithmetic, and music; astronomy and natural philosophy, so that “there be not a river in all the world thou dost not know the name of, and nature of all its fishes; all the fowls of the air; all the several kinds of shrubs and herbs; all the metals hid in the bowels of the earth; with all gems and precious stones. I would furthermore have thee study the Talmudists and Cabalists, and get a perfect knowledge of man. In brief, I would have thee a bottomless pit of all knowledge.” (Rabelais: Pantagruel, book ii. 8.)

 

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Garagantua (g hard)
Garagantuan
Garble (g hard)
Garcias (g hard)
Gardarike
Garden (g hard)
Gardener (g hard)
Gardening (g hard)
Gargamelle
Gargantua (g hard)
Gargantuan
Gargittios
Gargouille, or Gargoil (g hard)
Garibaldi’s Red Shirt
Garland (g hard)
Garlick
Garnish (g hard)
Garratt (g hard)
Garraway’s
Garrote or Garotte
Garter (g hard)