giant

Etymology

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”).

noun

1. A mythical human of very great size.
2. (mythology) Specifically:
   1. Any of the gigantes, the race of giants in the Greek mythology.
   2. A jotun.
3. A very tall and large person.
   "It's barbarous, Norsus." "It's Rome," said the giant flatly. 1966, James Workman, The Mad Emperor, Melbourne, Sydney: Scripts, page 65
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.
   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. 2020-05-20, “J&J to sell baby powder in UK despite stopping US sales”, in BBC, London: BBC, retrieved 2020-05-22
8. A person of extraordinary strength or powers, bodily or intellectual.
   she's not the intellectual giant 1988, Thomas Dolby, Airhead
9. (gymnastics) A maneuver involving a full rotation around an axis while fully extended.

adj

1. Very large.
   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. 2013-07-26, Nick Miroff, “Mexico gets a taste for eating insects …”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 7, page 32