[Lexicog] Re: Synonymy

[Fritz Goerling]

Other quasi-synonyms are: "great" and "grand". A "big man" differs in nuance
from a "great man" and
a "grand (old) man."

Fritz Goerling

Kenneth Hill wrote:

  While 'big' and 'large' are synonomous in the usual sense that they
  seriously overlap in meaning, they certainly mean different things in some
  contexts. Remember the movie 'Little Big Man'? 'Little Large Man' would be
  weird. A 'big man' can be a physically large man, but also, unlike 'large
  man', can be an important man or a man of moral force. Napoleon and Gandhi
  were big men who were physically small. They were not large men even
  though they loom large in history.

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