any large, overpowering force or object, such as war, a giant battleship, or a powerful football team.
anything requiring blind devotion or cruel sacrifice.
Chiefly British. A large, heavy vehicle, especially a truck.
a crude idol of Krishna worshipped at Puri and throughout Odisha (formerly Orissa) and Bengal. At an annual festival the idol is wheeled through the town on a gigantic chariot and devotees are supposed to have formerly thrown themselves under the wheels
a form of Krishna miraculously raised by Brahma from the state of a crude idol to that of a living god
any terrible force, esp one that destroys or that demands complete self-sacrifice
a very large lorry for transporting goods by road, esp one that travels throughout Europe
A force, an idea, or a system of beliefs that overcomes opposition — especially if it does so ruthlessly — is called a “juggernaut.”
First recorded in 1630–40, in the sense of an idol of Krishna annually drawn on an enormous cart in Puri, Odisha, India; 1840–45 juggernaut for defs. 1, 2; from Hindi Jagannāth, from Sanskrit Jagannātha- “lord of the world”; see Jagannath ( def. )
Juggernaut means a massive force. If the army marching into your country is a juggernaut, you're doomed. If you're trying to market a new Cola product, you're up against corporate giant Coca-Cola, a beverage juggernaut if ever there was one. With its roots in Hindi, juggernaut originally referred to a crude statue from which the Hindu god, Brahma, turned into the living god, Krishna. There continues to be a festival in honor of this miracle, in which a statue of Krishna is carted through town. It is said that in times past, devotees would throw themselves under the cart’s wheels.
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Yet in person, the dealership hardly looks like a sales juggernaut.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 18, 2026
The world's richest person is suing OpenAI over its transformation from a scrappy nonprofit into the $850 billion juggernaut behind ChatGPT.
From Barron's • May 18, 2026
The sketch-comedy mainstay remains a ratings juggernaut, and the version it recently exported to the United Kingdom was renewed Thursday for a second season.
From MarketWatch • May 7, 2026
Goodman is credited with attuning it to New Age sensibilities and turning astrology from a niche interest into a pop-culture juggernaut.
From Slate • May 5, 2026
When a juggernaut passed the other way, it slapped up spumes onto the streaming windscreen.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
