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
Kurt Badenhausen, Sportico.com, 5 May 2025
Berkshire has grown into a one-of-a-kind juggernaut worth nearly $1.2 trillion with businesses encompassing insurance, railroad, retail, manufacturing and energy.
—Yun Li, CNBC, 5 May 2025
The company grew into a global online shopping juggernaut, thanks in large part to its extremely low prices.
—Timothy McLaughlin, Wired News, 5 May 2025
Ryan Coogler’s Sinners – a Southern Gothic vampire-musical-period epic led by Michael B. Jordan – is an irrefutable juggernaut.
—Kyle Denis, Billboard, 2 May 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 20 May. 2025.
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