From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishmonumentalmon‧u‧ment‧al /ˌmɒnjəˈmentl◂ $ ˌmɑː-/ adjective 1 [usually before noun]IMPORTANT a monumental achievement, piece of work etc is very important and is usually based on many years of work a monumental contribution to the field of medicine Charles Darwin’s monumental study, ‘The Origin of Species’2 [only before noun]TOO/TOO MUCH extremely large, bad, good, impressive etc Banks and building societies were yesterday accused of monumental incompetence. a monumental task There was a monumental traffic jam on the freeway.3 [only before noun]AA relating to a monument or built as a monument a monumental arch
Examples from the Corpus
monumental• The costs, of course, were monumental.• Of course, the statue of Michael Jackson, too, is a monumental advertising campaign.• He was also in the huge orchestra which recorded and toured performing Charles Mingus's monumental composition Epitaph.• The concert was a monumental embarrassment.• The Foreign Secretary opened his speech by referring to the monumental events that now surround us.• Nor will it suffice simply to survey the mass of habits and rituals involved in the monumental institution of the Empire.• But what a monumental place in the history of publicity she has.• The pharaohs lived in mud palaces but were buried in monumental stone edifices.• At the same time, a monumental struggle was going on in the state and federal courts.• It was a monumental task.• a monumental temple• Darwin published his monumental work on evolution in 1859. 