juggernaut
noun
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The History of Juggernaut
In the early 14th century, Franciscan missionary Friar Odoric brought to Europe the story of an enormous carriage that carried an image of the Hindu god Vishnu (whose title was Jagannāth, literally, "lord of the world") through the streets of India in religious processions. Odoric reported that some worshippers deliberately allowed themselves to be crushed beneath the vehicle's wheels as a sacrifice to Vishnu. That story was likely an exaggeration or misinterpretation of actual events, but it spread throughout Europe. The tale caught the imagination of English listeners, and they began using juggernaut to refer to any massive vehicle (such as a steam locomotive) and to any other enormous entity with powerful crushing capabilities. While the word is still used sometimes in British English to refer to a very large, heavy truck (also called a "juggernaut lorry"), juggernaut is more commonly used figuratively for a relentless force, entity, campaign, or movement, as in "a political/economic/cultural juggernaut."
Examples of juggernaut in a Sentence
Lisa Eadicicco, CNN Money, 8 Dec. 2025
The movie barely made it to an international total of $39 million compared to the $180 million earned by Blumhouse’s earlier juggernaut.
—Alison Foreman, IndieWire, 8 Dec. 2025
The win marked 30 straight victories for the Bobcats, who have been a juggernaut of Class 4A Division I for quite some time now.
—Chris Winters, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 6 Dec. 2025
But the dominance posed by a potential Netflix-HBO Max streaming juggernaut – along with concerns about implications for the movie theater industry – may pose challenges to the deal being approved by regulators.
—Mike Snider, USA Today, 6 Dec. 2025
See All Example Sentences for juggernaut
Cite this Entry
“Juggernaut.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/juggernaut. Accessed 15 Dec. 2025.
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