leviathan
(biblical, mythology) A vast sea monster of tremendous strength, either imaginary or real, described as the most dangerous and powerful creature in the ocean.
The fog seemed to break away as though split by a wedge, and the bow of a steamboat emerged, trailing fog-wreaths on either side like seaweed on the snout of Leviathan.
(figuratively) A thing which is monstrously great in size, strength, etc. (especially a ship); also, a person with great power or wealth.
It [a newspaper article] named some sons of bishops, and grandsons of archbishops; men great in their way, who had redeemed their disgrace in the eyes of many by the enormity of their plunder; and then, having disposed of these leviathans, it descended to Mr Harding.
Keeping his footing on the heaving deck by clutching the bulwarks, my brother looked past this charging leviathan [a torpedo ram warship] at the Martians again, and he saw the three of them now close together, and standing so far out to sea that their tripod supports were almost entirely submerged.
When she had exhibited these leviathans of public announcement [large canvas scrolls] to the astonished child, she brought forth specimens of the lesser fry in the shape of hand-bills, some of which were couched in the form of parodies on popular melodies, […]
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make / Their clay creator the vain title take / Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war; […]
(political science) Based on the writings of Thomas Hobbes, the political state, especially a domineering and totalitarian one.
(obsolete) The supreme evil spirit in the Abrahamic religions, who tempts humanity into sin; the Devil.
Very large; enormous, gargantuan.
Her virtuous, pale-blue, saucerlike eyes flooded with leviathan tears on unexpected occasions and made Yossarian mad.