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behemoth

noun
/bəˈhi(ː).məθ/

Etymology

From Middle English behemoth, bemoth, from Late Latin behemoth, from Hebrew בְּהֵמוֹת (behemót). Most likely, the Hebrew word is an intensive plural of בְּהֵמָה (behemá, “beast”), from Proto-Semitic (compare Ge'ez ብህመ (bəhmä, “to be dumb, to be speechless”), Arabic ب ه م (b h m)). Some have instead suggested a borrowing from a hypothetical Egyptian pA-i-H-E1-mw (*pꜣ-jḥ-mw, “hippopotamus”, literally “the ox of the water”), from pꜣ (“definite article”) + jḥ (“ox, cattle”) + mw (“water”) in a direct genitive construction (for the pronunciation, compare the later Coptic descendants ⲡ- (p-) + ⲉϩⲉ (ehe) + ⲙⲟⲟⲩ (moou)); this, however, suffers from problems such as the lack of attestation of the supposed etymon, and there seems little reason to prefer it to the intensive plural explanation.

  1. derived from *pꜣ-jḥ-mw✻
  2. derived from בְּהֵמוֹת
  3. derived from behemoth
  4. inherited from behemoth,bemoth

Definitions

  1. A great and mighty beast which God shows to Job in Job 40

    A great and mighty beast which God shows to Job in Job 40:15–24.

  2. Any great and mighty monster.

    • Next she doused the smouldering troll with the contents of the restaurant's fire extinguisher, hoping the icy powder wouldn't revive the sleeping behemoth.

  3. Something which has the qualities of great power and might, and monstrous proportions.

    • The diehards who did turn out were at least rewarded with a first sight of Jon Parkin, the behemoth striker signed from Preston, who scored a stunning goal on his debut at Norwich last weekend.
    • The wide access corridors passed slowly, the conduits and pipes like the circulatory system of some vast planetary behemoth.
    • We are the workers who built Alphabet. We write code, clean offices, serve food, drive buses, test self-driving cars and do everything needed to keep this behemoth running.

The neighborhood

Derived

behemothian, behemothic

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for behemoth. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA