Definition of "Titanic"

(not comparable) Of or relating to the Titans, a race of giant gods in Greek mythology.  examples

(by extension)

1. (comparable) Having great size, or great force, power, or strength.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • Rome—Rome imperial, bows her to the storm, / In the same dust and blackness, and we pass / The skeleton of her Titanic form, / Wrecks of another world, whose ashes still are warm.

     1818, Lord Byron, “Canto IV”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Canto the Fourth, London: John Murray, […], stanza XLVI, page 26

   • And still in the distracted distance we beheld the tumults of the outer concentric circles, and saw successive pods of whales, eight or ten in each, swiftly going round and round, like multiplied spans of horses in a ring; and so closely shoulder to shoulder, that a Titanic circus-rider might easily have overarched the middle ones, and so have gone round on their backs.

     1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “The Grand Armada”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, pages 430–431

2. (not comparable) Of a conflict or contest: involving equally powerful participants.  examples

The R.M.S. Titanic, an ocean liner, supposedly unsinkable, that sank on its maiden voyage on 15 April 1912 after colliding with an iceberg.  examples

A venture that fails spectacularly, especially one perceived as overconfident.  quotations  examples