giant

• giaunt (obsolete)

From Middle English geaunt, geant, from Old French geant, gaiant (Modern French géant) from Vulgar Latin *gagās, gagant-, from Latin gigās, gigant-, from Ancient Greek γίγας (gígas, “giant”) Cognate to giga- (“1,000,000,000”).

Displaced native Old English ent. Compare Modern English ent (“giant tree-man”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒaɪ.ənt/
  • (dialectal, nonstandard) IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒaɪnt/
• (Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒʌɪ.ənt/, /ˈd͡ʒaɪ.ənt/
  • (Ontario, nonstandard) IPA^(key): [ˈd͡ʒəɪ̯(ə)nt]

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪənt
• Hyphenation: gi‧ant

giant (plural giants)

1. A mythical human of very great size.
2. (mythology, fantasy) Specifically:
   1. Any of the gigantes, the race of giants in the Greek mythology.
   2. A jotun.
3. A very tall and large person.
   • 1966, James Workman, The Mad Emperor, Melbourne, Sydney: Scripts, page 65:

     "It's barbarous, Norsus." "It's Rome," said the giant flatly.

4. A tall species of a particular animal or plant.
5. (astronomy) A star that is considerably more luminous than a main sequence star of the same temperature (e.g. red giant, blue giant).
6. (computing) An Ethernet packet that exceeds the medium's maximum packet size of 1,518 bytes.
7. A very large organisation.

   The retail giant is set to acquire two more struggling high-street chains.

   • 2020 May 20, “J&J to sell baby powder in UK despite stopping US sales”, in BBC‎, London: BBC, retrieved 2020-05-22:

     Healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson says it will continue to sell its talc-based Johnson's Baby Powder in the UK and the rest of the world, despite stopping sales in the US and Canada.

8. A person of extraordinary strength or powers, bodily or intellectual.
   • 1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter 1, in The Amateur Poacher, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC:

     But then I had the flintlock by me for protection. ¶ There were giants in the days when that gun was made; for surely no modern mortal could have held that mass of metal steady to his shoulder. The linen-press and a chest on the top of it formed, however, a very good gun-carriage; and, thus mounted, aim could be taken out of the window […].

   • 1988, Thomas Dolby, Airhead:

     she's not the intellectual giant

9. (gymnastics) A maneuver involving a full rotation around an axis while fully extended.

See also: Thesaurus:giant

giant (not comparable)

1. Very large.
   • 2013 July 26, Nick Miroff, “Mexico gets a taste for eating insects …”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 7, page 32:

     The San Juan market is Mexico City's most famous deli of exotic meats, where an adventurous shopper can hunt down hard-to-find critters …. But the priciest items in the market aren't the armadillo steaks or even the bluefin tuna. That would be the frozen chicatanas – giant winged ants – at around $500 a kilo.

• colossal, enormous, gigantic, immense, prodigious, vast
• See also Thesaurus:large

• dwarf
• midget

• Ngāti, TA'ing, TAing, Taing, anti-g, tagin, tangi, tiang, tinga