colossus
noun
Did you know?
The original colossi (notice the plural form) were the larger-than-life statues made by the Greeks and Romans. The most famous of these was the Colossus of Rhodes, a statue of the sun god Helios built on the Greek island of Rhodes around 280 B.C. that was over 100 feet tall and took more than 12 years to build. The Statue of Liberty is a modern colossus, enormous and stately, at the entrance to New York Harbor. And someone who has played a colossal role in history, such as Winston Churchill, may be called a colossus as well.
Examples of colossus in a Sentence
Boston Herald Wire Services, Boston Herald, 12 July 2025
Topline After becoming the world’s first-ever $4 trillion company Wednesday, the scope of artificial intelligence colossus Nvidia’s size is hard to grasp, as the less than 40,000-person company is now worth more than 97% of the world’s economies and all of the world’s military spending.
—Derek Saul, Forbes.com, 9 July 2025
In South Africa, the continent’s economic colossus, small-scale solar now provides, by his reckoning, nearly a fifth the capacity of the national grid.
—Bill McKibben, New Yorker, 9 July 2025
Vexing because, for me, as for a lot of my writer peers, Beckett is a colossus—worthy of the highest regard.
—Deborah Treisman, New Yorker, 22 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for colossus
Cite this Entry
“Colossus.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/colossus. Accessed 18 Jul. 2025.
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colossus
noun
from Latin colossus "huge statue, colossus"
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