leviathan

noun

le·​vi·​a·​than li-ˈvī-ə-thən 

1

a

often Leviathan : a sea monster defeated by Yahweh in various scriptural accounts

b

: a large sea animal

This leviathan of animals is the great Blue Whale.

—Weston LaBarre

2

Leviathan : the political state

especially : a totalitarian state having a vast bureaucracy

3

: something large or formidable

that leviathan of international corporations

leviathan adjective

Did you know?

Old Testament references to a huge sea monster, Leviathan (in Hebrew, Liwyāthān), are thought to come from an ancient myth in which the god Baal slays a multiheaded sea monster. Leviathan appears in the Book of Psalms, as a sea serpent that is killed by God and then given as food to creatures in the wilderness, and it is mentioned in the Book of Job as well. Today, its name is used for "something monstrous or of enormous size."

Synonyms of leviathan

• whale
• giant
• monster
• dinosaur
• mammoth

Examples of leviathan in a Sentence

The factory is a towering leviathan in the middle of the town.

a leviathan of the seas, that cruise ship is said to be the largest passenger vessel afloat

Recent Examples on the Web

The industry’s first millennial mogul wants to change the DNA of Hollywood while building a new type of entertainment leviathan out of the husk of a once-legendary film and television studio. —Tatiana Siegel, Variety, 4 Nov. 2025

The English Wikipedia is now roughly 93 times bigger than Encyclopædia Britannica, the shelf-warping print leviathan that fascinated him as a child. —Big Think, 28 Oct. 2025

Both the leviathans are undergoing testing in the waters around China’s southernmost province of Hainan, open-source maritime analyst H.I. Sutton wrote in a report for Naval News. —Micah McCartney, MSNBC Newsweek, 25 Sep. 2025

But Maiolino and his colleagues described a solitary leviathan with no parent galaxy in sight. —Quanta Magazine, 12 Sep. 2025

Word History

Etymology

Middle English, from Late Latin, from Hebrew liwyāthān

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Kids Definition

leviathan

noun

le·​vi·​a·​than li-ˈvī-ə-thən 

1

often capitalized : a sea monster often standing for evil in the Old Testament and Christian literature

2

: something very large or powerful of its kind