larger

To be (or seem) more important, impressive, or exciting than the average person or thing. Celebrities are always larger than life to their fans. Have you seen the new stadium? It really seems like it's larger than life when you're inside.

More important, impressive, or exciting than the average person or thing. Celebrities are always larger than life to their fans. Have you seen the new stadium? It really seems like it's larger than life when you're inside.

Cliché a colorful way of saying that a person or a thing appeared, often surprisingly or dramatically, in a particular place. (*Also: as ~.) The little child just stood there as big as life and laughed very hard. I opened the door, and there was Tom as large as life. I came home and found this cat in my chair, as big as life and twice as ugly.

Fig. in person; actually, and sometimes surprisingly, present at a place. (*Also: as ~.) I thought Jack was away, but there he was as large as life. Jean was not expected to appear, but she turned up large as life.

Fig. [of someone] having an aura of greatness, perhaps not supported by the real person. Perry seemed larger than life to those who had only read about him. To the rest of us, he was a boor. To the children, the star athlete who spoke at the school assembly seemed larger than life.

Also, large as life. In person, as in And there was Mary, big as life, standing right in front of me. This phrase transfers the same size as in real life (life-size) to an actual appearance. Sometimes this term is embellished with and quite as natural, presumably alluding to a likeness of a person or thing that closely resembles the real thing. A similar addition is and twice as natural, which doesn't make sense. [Late 1800s]

Also, larger than life. See big as life.

If you say that someone is somewhere, large as life, you mean that you are surprised and sometimes shocked to see them there. And now she was back, large as life, to claim her inheritance. Amos walked big as life into the diner and took his time over the menu.

COMMON If you describe someone as larger than life, you mean that they have a very strong personality and behave in a way that makes people notice them. She was larger than life yet intensely human, brilliant yet warm. He's bigger than life, and she's quiet and humble. Note: Larger-than-life is often used before nouns. John Huston was a larger-than-life character, whose temperament was as dramatic as any of the characters in his own films.

Life-size, appearing to be real; on a grand scale. The first expression may be an English version of a much older Latin saying, ad vivum, or “to the life.” It dates from the late eighteenth century, when it appeared in Maria Edgeworth’s Lame Jervas (1799): “I see the puppets, the wheelbarrows, everything as large as life.” In the nineteenth century a number of writers not only used the term but added to it, “and quite as natural.” Among them were Cuthbert Bede (1853), Lewis Carroll (in Through the Looking Glass, 1871), and George Bernard Shaw (1893). A similar addition, essentially meaningless, was “and twice as natural.” The second version, larger than life, conveys the idea of being on a grand or heroic scale. A less alliterative form, big as life, is sometimes used.