Ingente is a concept that comes from the Latin word ingens . It is an adjective that describes something that is very large .
The term is usually used to refer to a large amount of data . For example: "The huge number of protesters did not stop all day" , "The club spent a huge amount of money to sign the young promise of Turkish football" , "This software allows you to analyse a huge volume of data in just a few seconds" .
When something is of enormous magnitude , it is described as enormous. An art expert, for example, may refer to the "enormous cultural value " of a particular collection of paintings. With this expression, the specialist highlights the importance of these works for culture.
The president of a country, for his part, can blame his nation's macroeconomic problems on the "enormous external debt" that dates back more than a century. The president assures that, as long as this debt is not renegotiated and a reduction is not agreed with the creditors, the national economic situation will continue to be complex.
After a terrible earthquake, a city is left in ruins. Thousands of buildings are destroyed and the infrastructure is severely damaged. In this situation, the local government and the inhabitants have a “huge job” ahead of them to achieve reconstruction: this means that they will have to dedicate a lot of time and effort to recovery tasks.
As you can see, this term is not very common in everyday speech, but we usually find it in the press and in literature. However, its meaning is known by a large portion of the population, especially those who read the news and who like literature.
That said, we can use some of the synonyms of the term ingenuous to try to understand its meaning in greater depth, paying attention to certain nuances that are not so obvious when simply observing the sentences of which it is a part. Some of the most common are the following: gigantic, immense, colossal , enormous, monumental, enormous, grandiose and titanic .
All of them refer to a large size , which is the only meaning that the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy offers us for this word. Regarding its etymology, we do not find much information other than its mere composition: at the beginning there is the prefix in- , which is used to denote negation or deprivation, as well as "inward"; next, there is the Latin term gens , which can be translated as "produce, engender", but which is also understood as "people" in the sense of plurality or size.
Having seen its synonyms, we can mention two of its antonyms: tiny and insignificant . In short, it is clear that a huge task entails a great effort , since size cannot be understood literally or materially, as if we were talking about an object, but rather the difficulty involved in achieving a certain objective. In fact, it is common that the huge cannot be resolved by a single action, but by a strategy that brings together two or more.
If we turn our attention once again to the example of the city in ruins, whose level of destruction can only be reversed with great effort, through enormous work, we understand that it is not a question of one or two actions, but of a recovery plan consisting of several well-organized tasks . Medical care for citizens alone, which should be the priority, is a complex task; but then comes the removal of the rubble, the demolition of buildings that have been left in a state that is impossible to restore, and finally the reconstruction of the city, among many other complementary goals.