leviathan means very large; enormous, gargantuan. It carries an Arena rating of 1973, earned across 62 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, leviathan ranks #8 of 17,128 for Most Ponderous Words, #18 of 42,749 for Qualifying, #94 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words, #102 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books.
leviathan is pronounced /lɪˈvaɪəθn̩/.
Why “leviathan” is a great word
A vast sea monster of tremendous strength, or by extension, anything of monstrously great size, power, or complexity, such as a state or organization. From Middle English, from Late Latin leviathan, a transliteration of Biblical Hebrew לִוְיָתָן (liwyāṯān), possibly from לִוְיָה (liwyâ, 'garland, wreath') + ־תָּן (-tān, suffix forming agent nouns), literally meaning 'the tortuous one'; the sense of a political state was coined by English philosopher Thomas Hobbes in his 1651 work Leviathan. Unlike 'behemoth,' which is earthbound and brutish in its mass, or 'colossus,' which stands in monumental stillness, the leviathan is a serpent of the deep, a creature of fluid and formidable dominion. It is the tentacled shadow passing beneath a small boat, the unseeable bulk that makes the hull groan; it is the endless corridors of a ministry where no single hand steers, yet all are drowned in its procedure; it is the crushing, impersonal machinery of a society that moves as one vast, living body—the ancient terror of the abyss made manifest in the structures we build to contain ourselves.
Etymology
The noun is derived from Middle English leviathan, levyathan, levyethan, from Late Latin leviathan, a transliteration of Biblical Hebrew לִוְיָתָן (liwyāṯān), possibly from לִוְיָה (liwyâ, “garland, wreath”) + ־תָּן (-tān, suffix forming agent nouns), literally “the tortuous one”. Noun sense 2.2 (“political state”) was coined by English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) in his work Leviathan (1651): see the quotation. Noun sense 2.3 (“synonym of Satan”) refers to Isaiah 27:1 in the Bible (King James Version, spelling modernized): “In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish Leviathan the piercing serpent, even Leviathan that crooked serpent, and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.” The adjective is from an attributive use of the noun.
adj
- Very large; enormous, gargantuan.e.g.“Her virtuous, pale-blue, saucerlike eyes flooded with leviathan tears on unexpected occasions and made Yossarian mad.” — 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 171:
noun
- A vast sea monster of tremendous strength, either imaginary or real, described as the most dangerous and powerful creature in the ocean.
- A thing which is monstrously great in size, strength, etc. (especially a ship); also, a person with great power or wealth.
- Sometimes in the form Leviathan: based on the writings of Thomas Hobbes, the political state, especially a domineering and totalitarian one.e.g.“Holonym: the System”
- Synonym of Satan (“the supreme evil spirit in the Abrahamic religions, who tempts humanity into sin; the Devil”).
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- leviathanic 74% match — Relating to the leviathan. vs leviathan →
- behemoth 66% match — A great and mighty beast which God shows to Job in Job 40:15–24. vs leviathan →
- behemothian 56% match — Huge; very large. vs leviathan →
- taniwha 54% match — A spirit or monster in Maori mythology, especially one that dwells in the water. vs leviathan →
- behemothic 51% match — colossal, of enormous size and power. vs leviathan →
- titan 51% match — Something or someone of very large stature, greatness, or godliness. vs leviathan →
- dev 48% match — A monster, dragon, serpent, or giant. vs leviathan →
- aspidochelone 48% match — A fabled sea creature according to the tradition of the Physiologus and medieval bestiaries, variously described as a large whale or vast sea turtle, and a giant sea monster with huge spines on the ridge of its back. It is often mistaken for an island, enticing unwitting sailors and drowning them. vs leviathan →