Dictionary

cyclopean en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• /ˌsaɪkləˈpiː.ən/ (UK)
• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˈsaɪkləʊpi.ən/ (UK)

Etymology

From cyclops + -ean.

Meanings

1. Suggestive of a cyclops.
   • Some of the descendants of this cyclopean ancestor left their burrows and started to swim. 2026 February 23, Carl Zimmer, “The Rise of Eyes Began With Just One. Even Charles Darwin was puzzled by the evolution of the vertebrate eye. New research suggests that it traces back to a cyclopean invertebrate with a single eye atop the head”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 24 Feb 2026:
2. Fitted together of huge irregular stones.
3. (broadly) Massive in stature.
   • 2006, Fernando Pessoa, "Salutation to Walt Whitman," in A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems, edited and translated by Richard Zenith, Penguin, pp. 198-9, You were cyclopean and muscular, not pretty, / Yet your attitude toward the world was feminine, / And for you each leaf of grass, each stone and each man was the Universe. See also quotation under cyclopian.
4. (of an image) Created by combining two images.
   • When he wrote the word, / the o's were joined / like eyeglass lenses without / a bridge. Cross-eyed, hypnotic, / they threatened to merge, / become Cyclopean. […] 2001, Sharan Strange, “Looking”, in Ash, Boston: Beacon Press, page 50:

Forms

Deriveds

Cyclopean architecture · cyclopean stairs · hypercyclopean

Translations (8)

tr endamlı (massive in stature) · ca ciclopi (suggestive of a cyclops) · es ciclópico (suggestive of a cyclops) · es ciclópeo (suggestive of a cyclops) · ca ciclopi (massive in stature) · pl olbrzymi (massive in stature) · eo ciklopa (suggestive of a cyclops) · fr cyclopéen (suggestive of a cyclops)