leviathan

noun

No English definition recorded for this entry.

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /lɪˈvaɪəθn̩/ / /ləˈvaɪəθ(ə)n/

adj

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.

Very large; enormous, gargantuan.
“Her virtuous, pale-blue, saucerlike eyes flooded with leviathan tears on unexpected occasions and made Yossarian mad.”

noun

A vast sea monster of tremendous strength, either imaginary or real, described as the most dangerous and powerful creature in the ocean.
“So is this greate and wyde ſee [sea] alſo, wherin are thinges crepinge innumerable, both ſmall and greate beaſtes. There go the ſhippes ouer, and there is that Leuiathan, whom thou haſt made, to take his paſtyme therin.”
“Euen ſo do I thinke them no trewe Chryſtian men that do not reioyce with the Angels of heauen for the deliuerie of theſe owre brootherne, owre fleſſhe, and owre bones, from the handes of owre commune enemie the oulde ſerpente who hath ſo longe had them in hys poſſeſſion, vntyll the fulneſſe of the gentyles be accomplyſſhed accordynge to the time prefinite by hym, who vnto the yeare after his incarnation. M. CCCC. lxxxxii. hath ſuffered the greate ſerpente of the ſea Leuiathan, to haue ſuche dominion in the Ocean […]”
A thing which is monstrously great in size, strength, etc. (especially a ship); also, a person with great power or wealth.
“Of this laſt requeſt, the Lacquy of this great Leuiathan, promiſde he ſhould be maiſter, but he vvould not bring him to a miles end by land, (they vvere too many to meddle vvith).”
“So can the Lord deal, and often doth, vvith the great Behemoths and Leviathans of the vvorld: […]”
Sometimes in the form Leviathan: based on the writings of Thomas Hobbes, the political state, especially a domineering and totalitarian one.
“Holonym: the System”
“[T]he Multitude ſo united in one Perſon, is called a Common-vvealth, in latine Civitas. This is the generation of that great Leviathan, or rather (to ſpeake more reverently) of that Mortall God, to vvhich vvee ovve under the Immortall God, our peace and defence.”
Synonym of Satan (“the supreme evil spirit in the Abrahamic religions, who tempts humanity into sin; the Devil”).
“[S]eu'n times thrice more glorious the name, / By vvhich thrice povverfull vvee coniure the ſame: / VVhich but repeated doth that Dragon feare, / That olde Leuyathan vvhoſe iavves Lord teare. / […] / Then glorious Captaine, our chiefe God and man, / Breake thou the Iavves of old Leuiathan.”