juggernaut

Pluraljuggernauts

1. 1
   unstoppable forcenouncountable

   A force or object, literal or figurative, regarded as unstoppable and bound to crush everything in its path.

   By midseason the defending champions had become a juggernaut, flattening opponents by twenty points a night.

   The juggernaut of suburban development rolled on, swallowing farmland mile by mile.

   Similarpowerhouse, behemoth, colossus, steamroller

   Note

   Behind the word is a title: Sanskrit jagannātha, "Lord of the Universe," given to Krishna and borrowed into the English of the British in India in the 17th century. Dickens still capitalized it, setting it beside Moloch. Now lowercase, it is a word of motion. A juggernaut rolls on, inexorably, and an of phrase names the force itself, as in the juggernaut of Indian English.

2. 2
   big trucknounderogatoryBritishIrelandcountable

   A large, cumbersome truck, especially an articulated one such as a tractor-trailer.

   A forty-tonne juggernaut jackknifed on the motorway, closing two lanes for most of the morning.

   Residents want the council to ban juggernauts from the village's narrow lanes before one of them hits a pedestrian.

   Similarlorry, truck

   Note

   Calling a lorry a juggernaut in Britain and Ireland is sometimes a grumble about size: vehicles too big for streets "built for horses' carts." A driver can use it fondly, too. Richie Kavanagh's 2019 song "I love my juggernaut" is a driver's defense of his Volvo in a narrow market square. Elsewhere the word more readily means an unstoppable force than a truck.

3. 3
   cruel systemnouncountable

   An organization or system that encourages harmful loyalty or for whose sake people are sacrificed with little regard for their welfare.

   Generations of mill children were sacrificed to the juggernaut of the factory system.

   For twenty years he served the party juggernaut with a loyalty that cost him his marriage and his health.

   Similarmachine

   Note

   Here the word keeps its devotional edge. The institution is not merely in the way: people serve it, believe in it, and are carelessly sacrificed to it. That is the line between this and the unstoppable-force meaning. A force crushes whatever stands in its path, while this juggernaut is fed by its own followers. The construction to reach for is the passive with to: sacrificed to the juggernaut of the firm.

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