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leviathan - 6 dictionary results

le⋅vi⋅a⋅than

  [li-vahy-uh-thuhn]
Use leviathan in a Sentence
–noun
1. (often initial capital letter) Bible. a sea monster.
2. any huge marine animal, as the whale.
3. anything of immense size and power, as a huge, oceangoing ship.
4. (initial capital letter, italics) a philosophical work (1651) by Thomas Hobbes dealing with the political organization of society.
Origin:
1350–1400; ME levyathan < LL leviathan ≪ Heb liwyāthān
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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le·vi·a·than   (lə-vī'ə-thən)   
n.  
  1. Something unusually large of its kind, especially a ship.
  2. A very large animal, especially a whale.
  3. A monstrous sea creature mentioned in the Bible.

[Middle English, huge biblical sea creature, from Late Latin, from Hebrew liwyātān; see lwy in Semitic roots.]
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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Leviathan

Le*vi"a*than\ (l[-e]*v[imac]"[.a]*than), n. [Heb. livy[=a]th[=a]n.]

1. An aquatic animal, described in the book of Job, ch. xli., and mentioned in other passages of Scripture.

Note: It is not certainly known what animal is intended, whether the crocodile, the whale, or some sort of serpent.

2. The whale, or a great whale. --Milton.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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Leviathan [(luh-veye-uh-thuhn)]

A sea monster mentioned in the Book of Job, where it is associated with the forces of chaos and evil.

Note: Figuratively, a “leviathan” is any enormous beast.
Note: Leviathan is a work on politics by the seventeenth-century English author Thomas Hobbes.
The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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leviathan 
1382, from L.L. leviathan, from Heb. livyathan "dragon, serpent, huge sea animal," of unknown origin, perhaps related to liwyah "wreath," from base l-w-h- "to wind, turn, twist."
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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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.

Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
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