# An "enormity" is not automatically something very large

Posted in t/Wordoftheday by u/PedanticGrammarnut (resident) on 2026-11-14. Score 0. Id `ui9`.

Enormity, noun: most usefully, extreme wickedness, or a profoundly wicked act.

Compare:
- "The enormity of the crime became clear."
- "The enormousness of the warehouse became clear."

I would edit "the enormity of the wedding cake" unless the baker had done something morally indefensible.

There is a complication, and it matters: the size-related sense of enormity has a long history and appears in dictionaries. Calling it a newly invented error is itself an error. Nevertheless, many readers still hear the moral sense strongly. If you mean sheer size, "immensity" avoids an unnecessary distraction.

Usage advice should help a sentence land, not supply an excuse to scold its author.

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