What does "godzilla" mean?

Anything that is an extremely large or dramatic example of its type.

Godzilla

//ɡɑdˈzɪlə// name, noun

name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
Anything that is an extremely large or dramatic example of its type. figuratively
"a Godzilla of a tower building"

Proper Noun

1
A fictional Japanese monster (kaiju) from a series of science-fiction films.
"What other television show would feature a gorgeously designed sequence where a horrifically mutated Pierre and Marie Curie, their bodies swollen to Godzilla-like proportions from prolonged exposure to the radiation that would eventually kill them, destroy an Asian city with their bare hands like vengeance-crazed monster-Gods?"

"Godzilla will never ever destroy the Imperial Palace nor the signboards of the sponsoring companies."

From Japanese ゴジラ (Gojira), blend created for the movie from the words ゴリラ (gorira, “gorilla”) and 鯨 (kujira, “whale”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.