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[OE] The main adjective for ‘large’ in the Anglo-Saxon period was the now virtually obsolete mickle. Great at that time was for the most part restricted in meaning to ‘stout, thick’. In the Middle English period great broadened out in meaning, gradually taking over from mickle, but in modern English has itself been superseded by big and large, and is now used only in reference to non-material things. Its origins are a problem. It comes from a prehistoric West Germanic *grautaz, which also produced German gross and Dutch groot (source of English groat ‘small coin’ [14], etymologically a ‘big’ or ‘thick’ coin), but it is not clear where *grautaz came from. A resemblance to grit and groats has suggested a common origin in Indo-European *ghrēu- ‘rub, pound’.
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