behemoth

plural behemoths

1. biblicalA great and mighty beast which God shows to Job in Job 40:15–24.

   1 more example

   ⸿ Beholde now Behemoth which I made with thee, hee eateth graſſe as an oxe. Loe now, his ſtrength is in his loynes, and his force is in the nauell of his belly. Hee moueth his taile like a Cedar: the ſinewes of his ſtones are wrapt together. His bones are as ſtrong pieces of braſſe: his bones are like barres of iron.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Job 40:15–18, column 1

2. broadlyAny great and mighty monster.

   Next she doused the smouldering troll with the contents of the restaurant's fire extinguisher, hoping the icy powder wouldn't revive the sleeping behemoth.

   2001, Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl, page 58

3. figurativelySomething which has the qualities of great power and might, and monstrous proportions.

   The wide access corridors passed slowly, the conduits and pipes like the circulatory system of some vast planetary behemoth.

   2012, James S. A. Corey, Gods of Risk, →ISBN

   5 more examples

   The diehards who did turn out were at least rewarded with a first sight of Jon Parkin, the behemoth striker signed from Preston, who scored a stunning goal on his debut at Norwich last weekend.

   2011 January 18, Joe Lovejoy, “Cardiff City 0 Stoke City 2”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 26 May 2023

   We are the workers who built Alphabet. We write code, clean offices, serve food, drive buses, test self-driving cars and do everything needed to keep this behemoth running.

   2021 January 4, Parul Koul, Chewy Shaw, “We Built Google. This Is Not the Company We Want to Work For.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 16 Mar 2021

   Hiei now loomed into the action, causing the leading U.S. destroyers to scatter before the oncoming behemoth lest they be run down.

   2021 March 10, Drachinifel, 14:35 from the start, in Guadalcanal Campaign - The Big Night Battle: Night 1 (IJN 3(?) : 2 USN), archived from the original on 17 Oct 2022

   The phrase, “tank meta”, is one that carries a lot of weight when it comes to MOBAs. These metas are generally characterized by tanky, unkillable behemoths dominating the meta and leaving any character that isn’t focused around raw DPS in the dust.

   2022 November 17, Carver Fisher, “League of Legends preseason 13 has made tanks unkillable”, in Dexerto, archived from the original on 14 Dec 2024

   And it's not just freight that arrives here. I notice several massive passenger liners, looking more like floating blocks of flats rather than the elegant ships from the days when 'POSH' was coined. The arrival of just one of these behemoths can swamp Southampton station with passengers and luggage, but not today.

   2024 November 13, Paul Bigland, “Much to admire... but pockets of neglect”, in RAIL, number 1022, page 50

   Synonyms: colossus, leviathan, mammoth, titan