Feedback: synonyms

You can get a lot of information through this type of a search with synonyms and their collocations. Most of the combinations are fixed as for example big brother, great difficulty and large firms.

Notice also, that the synonyms here may take the same collocates, but the meaning changes according to the adjective: consider for example big deal and great deal, big man and great man.

You may also have drawn some general conclusions about the use of the words. Big has perhaps the most general meaning of the three words. Great has an additional, comparative and appreciative sense, it often carries the meaning bigger than average. For example, a great majority is usually bigger than a large majority, and great joy, great help and great pleasure are used in expressions of gratitude or appreciation. Large is used in general for quantity, it collocates with nouns such as volume, proportion, amount, sum and measure. It is also used with groups of people - family, group, population, crowd - and for institutions and companies: organisation, firm.