Leviathan

5 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Leviathan \Le*vi"a*than\ (l[-e]*v[imac]"[.a]*than), n. [Heb.
     livy[=a]th[=a]n.]
     [1913 Webster]
     1. An aquatic animal, described in the book of Job, ch. xli.,
        and mentioned in other passages of Scripture.
        [1913 Webster]


  
     Note: It is not certainly known what animal is intended,
           whether the crocodile, the whale, or some sort of
           serpent.
           [1913 Webster]
  
     2. The whale, or a great whale. --Milton.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  leviathan
       n 1: the largest or most massive thing of its kind; "it was a
            leviathan among redwoods"; "they were assigned the
            leviathan of textbooks"
       2: monstrous sea creature symbolizing evil in the Old Testament

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  31 Moby Thesaurus words for "leviathan":
     argosy, bark, boat, bottom, bucket, craft, cyclopean, dinosaur,
     elephant, elephantine, enormous, gargantuan, giant, gigantic,
     hippo, hippopotamus, hooker, hulk, hull, immense, jumbo, keel,
     mammoth, mastodon, monster, packet, ship, tub, vessel, watercraft,
     whale
  
  

From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:

  Leviathan
     a transliterated Hebrew word (livyathan), meaning "twisted,"
     "coiled." In Job 3:8, Revised Version, and marg. of Authorized
     Version, it denotes the dragon which, according to Eastern
     tradition, is an enemy of light; in 41:1 the crocodile is meant;
     in Ps. 104:26 it "denotes any large animal that moves by
     writhing or wriggling the body, the whale, the monsters of the
     deep." This word is also used figuratively for a cruel enemy, as
     some think "the Egyptian host, crushed by the divine power, and
     cast on the shores of the Red Sea" (Ps. 74:14). As used in Isa.
     27:1, "leviathan the piercing [R.V. 'swift'] serpent, even
     leviathan that crooked [R.V. marg. 'winding'] serpent," the word
     may probably denote the two empires, the Assyrian and the
     Babylonian.
     

From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993) [devils]:

  LEVIATHAN, n.  An enormous aquatic animal mentioned by Job.  Some
  suppose it to have been the whale, but that distinguished
  ichthyologer, Dr. Jordan, of Stanford University, maintains with
  considerable heat that it was a species of gigantic Tadpole (_Thaddeus
  Polandensis_) or Polliwig -- _Maria pseudo-hirsuta_.  For an
  exhaustive description and history of the Tadpole consult the famous
  monograph of Jane Potter, _Thaddeus of Warsaw_.