Titanic

How to spell titanic

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce titanic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does titanic mean?

1. adjectiveOf enormous size, strength, or scale.

Titanic in a sentence

• The company made a titanic effort to clear its debts before the deadline.

• Engineers struggled against the titanic forces pressing on the dam.

Where does titanic come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word descends from the Greek Titanes, the name of a race of enormous primordial gods who, in Greek mythology, ruled before the Olympians and were famous for their colossal size and raw strength. The singular Titan came to stand for anyone or anything of gigantic scale, and the Greek adjective titanikos meant 'of or like the Titans'. Latin absorbed the name as Titan, and from the late 1600s English began using 'titanic' to describe things of immense size, force, or importance. The chemical element titanium was named after these same giants in the 1790s because of its great strength. Most modern readers associate the word with the ocean liner RMS Titanic, but the adjective itself simply means 'gigantic', and its single t in the middle and -ic ending follow the same pattern as other Greek-derived adjectives.

How the word is built

• titan (from the Titans, the giant gods of Greek myth)
• -ic (adjective suffix: relating to, having the quality of)