sleeping giant

noun

: one that has great but unrealized or newly emerging power

Examples of sleeping giant in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Shea-Bouchard is a sleeping giant of a roster ploy, and Babcock badly needs to find some offence on the secondary lines. — Allan Mitchell, New York Times, 28 Oct. 2026

Pore knew enough about KC and its love for sports — soccer, specifically — to view the program as a sleeping giant. — Daniel Sperry, Kansas City Star, 11 Oct. 2026

Johannes Neudecker | Picture Alliance | Getty Images Is tech's biggest sleeping giant about to wake up? — Oliver Renick, CNBC, 7 July 2026

The framing imagines women as a unified bloc, a sleeping giant that, properly motivated, will deliver a decisive blow to whichever party has most recently offended them. — Maia Niguel Hoskin, Forbes.com, 30 June 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1970, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for sleeping giant

• compliant
• defiant
• reliant
• suppliant
• client
• pliant
• scient
• noncompliant