# leviathan

Pronunciation: US say "luh-VY-uh-thuhn" /ləˈvaɪəθ(ə)n/; UK say "li-VY-uh-thuhn" /lɪˈvaɪəθn̩/

## Noun

1. Something enormous in size or strength, especially a ship; also, a person of great power or wealth.
   - Simple: Something huge and very powerful, especially a big ship, or a very rich and powerful person.
   - _Cruise-ship leviathans now crowd the old harbor, each carrying thousands of passengers._
   - _The railroad baron was a leviathan of industry whose fortune shaped the whole state._
2. A real or imaginary sea monster of enormous size and strength, said to be more dangerous and powerful than any other creature in the ocean.
   - Simple: A huge, very strong sea monster, real or imagined, said to be the most dangerous creature in the sea.
   - _The psalm pictures Leviathan at play in the wide sea that God made._
   - _Old maps show a scaly leviathan rising from the ocean beside a tiny ship._
4. After Thomas Hobbes, the political state, especially a domineering or totalitarian one; sometimes written with a capital L.
   - Simple: The state as a huge power over people, especially a government that controls too much.
   - _Libertarians have long argued that the federal Leviathan should be cut down to size._
   - _Critics warned that the new surveillance law would only feed the leviathan of the security state._

## Adjective

3. Extremely large; enormous in size or scale.
   - Simple: Extremely big.
   - _The project came with a leviathan budget and an equally large list of problems._
   - _Her leviathan novel runs to more than a thousand pages._

## Noun

5. Satan, the Devil: the supreme evil spirit, who tempts humanity into sin. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Another name for Satan, the most evil spirit, who tempts people to do wrong.
   - _The old preacher warned that Leviathan lies in wait for every soul that strays._
   - _In the hymn, the faithful beg to be saved from the snares of Leviathan._

## Origin

From Middle English leviathan, from Late Latin leviathan, a transliteration of Biblical Hebrew liwyāṯān, possibly from liwyâ ("garland, wreath") plus an agent suffix, literally "the tortuous one". The sense "political state" was coined by Thomas Hobbes in his Leviathan (1651), and the use for Satan refers to Isaiah 27:1; the adjective comes from attributive use of the noun.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/leviathan (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).