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colossus

 - 4 dictionary results

co⋅los⋅sus

  [kuh-los-uhs]
Use colossus in a Sentence
–noun, plural -los⋅si  [-los-ahy] , -los⋅sus⋅es.
1. (initial capital letter) the legendary bronze statue of Helios at Rhodes. Compare Seven Wonders of the World.
2. any statue of gigantic size.
3. anything colossal, gigantic, or very powerful.
Origin:
1350–1400; ME < L < Gk kolossós statue, image, presumably < a pre-Hellenic Mediterranean language
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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co·los·sus   (kə-lŏs'əs)   
n.   pl. co·los·si (-lŏs'ī') or co·los·sus·es

  1. A huge statue.

  2. Something likened to a huge statue, as in size or importance: a colossus of bureaucracy.


[Latin, from Greek kolossos.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Computing Dictionary

Colossus
(A huge and ancient statue on the Greek island of Rhodes).
1. The Colossus and Colossus Mark II computers used by Alan Turing at Bletchley Park, UK during the Second World War to crack the "Tunny" cipher produced by the Lorenz SZ 40 and SZ 42 machines. Colossus was a semi-fixed-program vacuum tube calculator (unlike its near-contemporary, the freely programmable Z3).
["Breaking the enemy's code", Glenn Zorpette, IEEE Spectrum, September 1987, pp. 47-51.]
2. The computer in the 1970 film, "Colossus: The Forbin Project". Forbin is the designer of a computer that will run all of America's nuclear defences. Shortly after being turned on, it detects the existence of Goliath, the Soviet counterpart, previously unknown to US Planners. Both computers insist that they be linked, whereupon the two become a new super computer and threaten the world with the immediate launch of nuclear weapons if they are detached. Colossus begins to give its plans for the management of the world under its guidance. Forbin and the other scientists form a technological resistance to Colossus which must operate underground.
The Internet Movie Database.
(2007-01-04)

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe
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Encyclopedia

colossus

statue that is considerably larger than life-size. They are known from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, and Japan. The Egyptian sphinx (c. 2550 BC) that survives at al-Jizah, for example, is 240 feet (73 m) long; and the Daibutsu (Great Buddha; AD 1252) at Kamakura, Japan, is 37 feet (11.4 m) high.

Learn more about colossus with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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