behemoth
/bɪˈhiːmɒθ
/ /ˈbiːhɪˌməʊθ /noun
1A huge or monstrous creature: behemoths like the brontosaurus...
- The mountains themselves appeared the spiny backbones or monstrous prehistoric behemoths that were buried in thousands of layers of earth, and trying in vain to free themselves.
- Horses are huge, haunch heavy behemoths, built for speed and damn near poetry in motion.
- A huge behemoth stumped through the side of the house, carefully splashing a thin, clear watery substance from a large can onto the house.
1.1Something enormous, especially a large and powerful organization: shoppers are now more loyal to their local shops than to faceless behemoths...
- We are also able to attract high-quality people because we are different organisations from the behemoths.
- Even the biggest unions lack the resources for tackling such behemoths or for organizing whole industries on the scale needed for very fast growth.
- It's interesting just to list the predecessor organizations included in a few European-owned behemoths.
Origin
Late Middle English: from Hebrew bĕhēmōṯ, intensive plural of bĕhēmāh 'beast'.