English Reference

Idiom

sleeping giant

Meaning

Someone or something with great, latent strength.

Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Examples

“That quiet company is a sleeping giant in the tech market.”

“Many experts believe the country's economy is a sleeping giant that will soon dominate global trade.”

“The political movement, long dismissed as irrelevant by the establishment, proved to be a sleeping giant that eventually reshaped the entire nation.”

Examples

simple

“That quiet company is a sleeping giant in the tech market.”

contextual

“Many experts believe the country's economy is a sleeping giant that will soon dominate global trade.”

complex

“The political movement, long dismissed as irrelevant by the establishment, proved to be a sleeping giant that eventually reshaped the entire nation.”

Origin

first recorded 18th c.

A metaphor, maybe derived from Gulliver's Travels (1726), and made popular by the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora!, see quotations.

Key words

Related idioms

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English Reference