the.com/colossus
a thing so big the word itself became a brag about size
means A statue or structure of enormous size, or by extension any person or thing that is gigantic and towering above its peers.
from From Latin colossus, borrowed from Greek kolossos, which originally meant simply a large statue. The word's fame swelled thanks to the Colossus of Rhodes — a vast bronze statue of the sun-god Helios counted among the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. From that giant, English later built 'colossal' for anything outsized. The deeper origin of Greek kolossos is uncertain and may be pre-Greek, borrowed from some earlier Mediterranean tongue.
- original
- the Colossus of Rhodes, a 100-foot bronze sun god
- short life
- stood 54 years before an earthquake toppled it
- never straddled
- it never stood astride the harbor, that's a myth
- codebreaker
- Colossus was also WWII's first programmable digital computer
- scrap value
- its bronze was sold off and hauled away by camel
colossus of rhodes — bronze statue of helios built in 280 bce on the greek island of rhodes, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world
colossus of memnon — two massive limestone statues of amenhotep iii near luxor, egypt, each 67 feet tall, built around 1350 bce