Giantism

See also Tallness.

Albion

son of Neptune and ancestor of England. [Br. Lit.: Faerie Queene]

Alcyoneus

one of the Titans. [Gk. Myth.: Kravitz, 17]

Aloeidae

name given to twins Otus and Ephialtes. [Gk. Myth.: Kravitz, 17]

Anakim

race of tall men routed by Joshua. [O.T.: Numbers 13:32–33]

Antaeus

colossal wrestler slain by Hercules. [Gk. Myth.: Brewer Dictionary, 38]

Antigonus

giant nicknamed the Hand-Tosser. [Belgian Legend: Walsh Classical, 25]

Ascapart

thirty feet tall; defeated by Sir Bevis. [Medieval Romance: Walsh Classical, 34]

Atlas

Titan condemned to support world on his shoulders. [Gk. Myth.: Brewer Handbook, 13]

Babe, the Blue Ox

Paul Bunyan’s gigantic animal-of-all-work. [Am. Folklore: Spiller, 720]

Balan

strong and courageous colossus. [Span. Lit.: Amadis de Gaul]

Balor

Formorian giant with evil eye. [Irish Myth.: Benét, 76]

Beaver, Tony

equals mythical exploits of Paul Bunyan. [Am. Lit.: Up Eel River]

Bellerus

a Cornish giant. [Br. Lit.: Brewer Handbook, 108]

Blunderbore

nursery tale giant killed by Jack. [Br. Lit.: Brewer Dictionary, 128]

Brobdingnag

country of people twelve times the size of men. [Br. Lit.: Gulliver’s Travels]

Bunyan, Paul

legendary lumberjack who accomplished prodigious feats. [Am. Folklore: Brewer Dictionary, 163]

Cardiff giant

a gypsum statue passed off as a petrified prehistoric man till revealed as a hoax (1869). [Am. Hist.: EB (1963), 9: 533]

Clytius

son of Uranus and Gaea. [Gk. Myth.: Kravitz, 64]

Colossos

a gigantic brazen statue 126 ft. high executed by Chares for the harbor at Rhodes. [Gk. Hist.: Brewer Handbook, 226]

Cormoran

nursery tale giant felled by Jack. [Br. Lit.: Brewer Dictionary, 262]

Cyclopes

race of one-eyed, gigantic men. [Gk. Lit.: Odyssey; Arab. Lit.: Arabian Nights, “Sindbad the Sailor,” Third Voyage]

Egil

giant who watched over Thor’s goats. [Norse Myth.: LLEI, I: 327]

Enceladus

powerful giant whose hisses cause volcanic eruptions. [Gk. Myth.: Kravitz, 88]

Ephialtes and Otus

nine fathoms tall; threatened to battle Olympian gods. [Gk. Myth.: Leach, 39; Gk. Lit.: Iliad]

Ferragus

the Portuguese giant who took the empress Bellisant under his care. [Br. Lit.: “Valentine and Orson” in Brewer Handbook, 364]

Foawr

stone-throwing slaughterer of cattle. [Br. Folklore: Briggs, 178]

Galapos

giant slain by King Arthur. [Br. Lit.: History of Arthur, Brewer Handbook, 400]

Gargantua

royal giant who required 17,913 cows for personal milk supply. [Fr. Lit.: Gargantua and Pantagruel]

Glumdalca, Queen

captive giantess in love with Tom. [Br. Lit.: Tom Thumb]

Gog

and Magog two Cornish giants taken captive by Brutus, legendary founder of Britain. [Br. Legend: Brewer Dictionary, 471]

Goliath

towering Philistine giant slain by youthful David. [O.T.: I Samuel 17:49–51]

Jack-in-Irons

gigantic figure that attacks lonely wayfarers. [Br. Folklore: Briggs, 237]

Jolly Green Giant

trademark comes alive in animated commercials. [Am. Advertising: Misc.]

Jotunn

race of giants frequently in conflict with gods. [Norse Myth.: Leach, 559]

King Kong

giant ape brought to New York as “eighth wonder of world.” [Am. Cinema: Payton, 367]

Long Meg of Westminster

; 16th-century giantess. [Br. Hist.: Espy, 337]

Lubbard Fiend

brownie of gigantic size. [Br. Folklore: Briggs, 270–272]

Miller, Maximilian Christopher

the Saxon giant. [Br. Hist.: Brewer Handbook, 706]

Mimir

gigantic god of primeval ocean. [Norse Myth.: Leach, 728]

Morgante

ferocious giant converted to Christianity. [Ital. Lit.: Morgante Maggiore, Wheeler, 248]

Nephilim

race dwelling in Canaan before Israelites. [O.T.: Genesis 6:4]

giant who attacked Israelites. [O.T.: Deuteronomy 3:2]

Orgoglio

a hideous giant, as tall as three men; son- of Earth and Wind. [Gk. Myth.: Brewer Handbook, 780]

Orion

colossus of great beauty and hunting skill. [Gk. and Rom. Myth.: Wheeler, 271]

Pantagruel

gigantic, virtuous king who needed 4,600 cows to nurse him. [Fr. Lit.: Gargantua and Pantagruel]

Polyphemus

cruel monster; one of the Cyclopes. [Gk. Lit.: Odyssey; Rom. Lit.: Aeneid]

Titans

lawless children of Uranus and Gaea. [Gk. Myth.: Brewer Dictionary, 1086]

Tityus

son of Zeus; body covered nine acres. [Gk. and Rom. Myth.: Wheeler, 368]

Typhon

fire-breathing colossus. [Gk. and Rom. Myth.: Wheeler, 373]

Utgard

residence of colossi. [Norse Myth.: Brewer Dictionary, 1120]

Ymir

father of the giant race. [Norse Myth.: Wheeler, 395]

Mentioned in

References in periodicals archive

Two factors underlay the latest chapter of factory giantism. First was the opening up, starting in the 1980s, of China and then Vietnam to private and foreign capital, part of massive national efforts to boost living standards and embrace a modernity increasingly measured by global, largely capitalist, standards.

Giant factories

See generally, Jackson Lears, Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877-1920 (2009) (Giantism also leads to imperialism as a regular feature of American foreign policy since the close of the 19th century).

On the formation of the American corporate state: the fuller Supreme Court, 1888-1910

But financial giantism - private or public - isn't the answer.

Financial giantism, private or public, isn't the answer

Norton, not so incidentally, is one of the few major book publishers that has remained independent of corporate giantism. Because my book advance would not sustain me for the number of years I needed--I am either plodding or thorough, depending on the perspective--I supplemented the advance with a generous grant from the Alicia Patterson Foundation, presided over by journalist/administrator Peggy Engel.--S.W.

Publisher, editor and reporter: the investigative formula looking back to the early 1900's--to Ida Tarbell and S.S. McClure--offers valuable lessons for watchdog journalism in the 21st century

She employs it to cover bodily disabilities and 'oddities' including muteness, blindness, lameness, pock-marked complexion, eunuchism, and giantism. The term invites controversy, immediately establishing an oppositional idea of the physical normal, but Nussbaum uses it with some care, referring to recent understanding of impairment as 'both a biological condition and a social construct'.

The Limits of the Human: Fictions of Anomaly, Race, and Gender in the Long Eighteenth Century

One of the main flaws DeVoto points out is "the giantism of [Wolfe's] characters," all of whom stood "twenty feet tall, spoke with the voice of trumpets and the thunder, ate like Pantagruel, wept like Niobe, laughed like Falstaff, and bellowed like the bulls of Bashan" (4).

"The story of a tall man": Thomas Wolfe and the problems of literary iconography

These enormous and preventable costs are a direct result of giantism, of disconnecting staff from patients, of lack of ownership of problems, of alienation and the burden of extra management that enormous institutions entail.

Messing up centrally

dilemma illustrates the manner in which corporate giantism radically

Bailing out Congress: an assessment and defense of the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act of 2001

He shot up after reaching the age of 16, and has now beaten the previous natural, and not the result of a condition such as giantism or acromegaly, caused by too much growth hormone.

The world's tallest man

Despite his libertarian leanings, even Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has expressed deep concern about the "reality that the megabanks being formed by growth and consolidation are increasingly complex entities that create the potential for unusually large systemic risks in the national and international economy should they fail." Extreme giantism thus threatens to erect an Alice in Wonderland world of reverse economic Darwinism, where survival is assured for the fattest, not the fittest, and for the biggest, not the best.

Merger mania and its discontents: the price of corporate consolidation

In fact, if workers appeared at all in publicity material, they were not shown at work, but served to underline the giantism of maritime technology next to which human beings looked tiny.

Floating palaces: ocean liners as icons of modern splendour: Bernhard Rieger considers how luxury liners became icons of modernity and national pride in the early decades of the twentieth century

They became subject to evolutionary forces that propelled some toward giantism and reduced the size of others.

The little Floresians: the discovery of a new species of archaic humans in Indonesia offers a whole new take on human evolution and adaptation