SLEEPING GIANT Definition & Meaning

sleeping giant

[ slee-ping jahy-uhnt ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

someone or something whose strength has not been fully demonstrated or recognized but that, once provoked, will respond with unexpected force and extraordinary power:
The Japanese admiral, anticipating the U.S. reaction to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, allegedly said, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant.”
Ecology. an environmental condition or circumstance that has the potential for drastic consequences to one or more of the earth’s life systems:
The rapidly melting glaciers of eastern Antarctica represent some of our planet’s most dramatic sleeping giants.

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51�Թ� History and Origins

Origin of sleeping giant¹

First recorded in 1915–20

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

A sleeping giant, Jansen is not, but the established and accomplished veteran could play an outsize role in the development of the Angels’ potential next great closer.

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Latinos are no longer the sleeping giant of American politics.

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For example, some entity assumes it can act with impunity and gets away with plenty of crimes . . . until it crosses a sleeping giant.

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"They were surrounded by bluffs and mountains and things like that and my gran always used to say the mountains were sleeping giants," she said.

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“We are witnessing an acceleration that is absolutely devastating,” Guterres said about the rate of ice melt in Antarctica, which is considered to be a “sleeping giant.”

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