BIG BIGGER BETTER

Was shopping in Sasa with my friend when I came across Maybelline's new mascara - Maybelline magnum volum' express mascara.



The first thing which came to mind was Magnum ice-cream. HAHA.

Anyway, I thought using 'magnum' to describe lashes is a bit awkward. So i did a quick dictionary check when i came home and the results from longman and merriam-webster only had to do with guns and volume of a bottle. Eg from longman:

mag‧num (noun) [countable]
1. a large bottle containing about 1.5 litres of wine, champagne etc
2. a powerful type of gun that you can use with one hand:
a .44 magnum

A search of the cobuild corpus revealed similar results.

However, it is not that I am unable to understand what 'magnum' means in '9x magnum lashes' despite it working as an adjective instead of a noun. It is not saying that the tube of mascara has 1.5litres worth of mascara but that their new formular is so powerful you'll get 9x longer, more volumunious lashes.

Oh and i just did a search on OED and it has an additional meaning of magnum which the m-w and longman don't. And this additional definition fits in nicely with the point Maybelline is trying to drive across.

Magnum
adj. N. Amer. [Apparently developing from magnum force n. at Compounds] Unusually large or powerful; huge.

1987 Random House Dict. 1158/1 Magnum, unusually great in power or size: a magnum spotlight; a magnum dosage. 1990 People 14 May 133/2 Beneath that Dresden china exterior..is an ardent feminist with a magnum intellect. 1994 Ontario Out of Doors Sept. 57/1 When you open the box, you can head directly into the field with a dozen magnum decoys (six drakes, six hens) in a handy totebag.

So yes, 9x larger, more powerful lashes which in this case powerful is used to mean flirtier longer lashes.