Word.ws English Dictionary

loom large

loom large verb: to have a great deal of importance, presence, power, or sway; to be of great significance or concern, especially when posing a likely threat or danger.

Verb

loom large (third-person singular simple present looms large, present participle looming large, simple past and past participle loomed large)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To have a great deal of importance, presence, power, or sway; to be of great significance or concern, especially when posing a likely threat or danger.
    • Energy policy will loom large in the policy decisions of the new government.
    • Sooner or later the Catholic question will loom large in our way, so why not take a definite standpoint right from the beginning?1934, United States. Congress. House. Special Committee on Un-American Activities, Investigation of Nazi Propaganda Activities and Investigation of Certain Other Propaganda Activities, page 281
    Synonyms:
    bulk large

Examples of loom large in a sentence

  • One doubts that adequate assistance would loom large as a factor in the demoralization of the individual.1957, Charlotte Towle, Common Human Needs, page 64:
  • Nevertheless, even for a country bank, the unpredictable can loom large in the management of its reserve position.1980, Howard D. Crosse, George H. Hempel, Management Policies for Commercial Banks, page 174:
  • At the same time, the environmental problems certainly loom large in all transition countries.1990, Statistical Journal of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe: Volumes 7-8, page 131:

Synonyms of loom large

Forms of loom large

third-person singular presentlooms large
present participlelooming large
past participleloomed large
pastloomed large

Questions about loom large

What does loom large mean?
Loom large means to have a great deal of importance, presence, power, or sway; to be of great significance or concern, especially when posing a likely threat or danger.
How do you use loom large in a sentence?
One doubts that adequate assistance would loom large as a factor in the demoralization of the individual.
What part of speech is loom large?
Loom large is a verb.
What is the past tense of loom large?
The past tense of loom large is loomed large.

Words near loom large in the dictionary

  1. looky-loos
  2. loom
  3. loom ahead
  4. loom band
  5. loom bands
  6. loom large
  7. loom weight
  8. Looman
  9. Loomans
  10. loomband
  11. loombands

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: loom large (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-loom large.wav, En-au-loom large.ogg.

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