Colossus
noun ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A statue of gigantic size. The name was especially applied to certain famous statues in antiquity, as the Colossus of Nero in Rome and the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
- 2 a person of exceptional importance and reputation wordnet
- 3 Any creature or thing of gigantic size. broadly
"["]The Empire has always been a realm of colossal resources. […] Why, they don't even understand their own colossi any longer. The machines work from generation to generation automatically, and the caretakers are a hereditary caste who would be helpless if a single D-tube in all that vast structure burnt out.["]"
- 4 someone that is abnormally large and powerful wordnet
- 5 Somebody or something very greatly admired and respected. figuratively
"The truth is that [Isaac] Newton was very much a product of his time. The colossus of science was not the first king of reason, [John Maynard] Keynes wrote after reading Newton’s unpublished manuscripts. Instead “he was the last of the magicians”."
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World are the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Temple of Artemis, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Lighthouse of Alexandria."
Etymology
From Latin colossus, from Ancient Greek κολοσσός (kolossós, “large statue, especially the colossus of Rhodes”), from an unknown Pre-Greek etymon (and erroneously associated with κολοφών).
Related phrases
More for "colossus"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.