Herculean, a.
(həˈkjuːlɪən)
[f. L. Hercule-us, f. Herculēs (see below) + -an. Cf. F. Herculéen.]
1. Of or pertaining to Hercules.
Herculean pillars, Herculean straits: see Hercules 1 c.
| 1610 Chester's Tri. (Chetham Soc.) Particulars 2 Bearing Herculian Clubbes in their hands. 1613 Purchas Pilgrimage (1614) 233 The Arabike tongue..It is now the most universall in the world..from the Herculean Pillars to the Molluccas. c 1645 Howell Lett. xlviii. (1754) 354 You have knocked him down with a kind of Herculean Club. 1678 Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. iii. §33. 141 That the Mediterranean Sea forced open that passage of the Herculean Straits. 1803 Beddoes Hygëia ix. 17 It [epilepsy] was like⁓wise called the Herculean complaint, an appellation which medical etymologists are puzzled to explain. |
2. Like Hercules, esp. in strength, courage, or labours; prodigiously powerful or vigorous; gigantic.
| 1596 Nashe Saffron Walden 116 The more than Herculean fury he was in. 1667 Milton P.L. ix. 1060 The Danite strong, Herculean Samson. 1791 Boswell Johnson an. 1750 (1831) I. 201 Addison's style..though comparatively weak, when opposed to Johnson's Herculean vigour. 1814 Byron Corsair i. ix, Robust but not Herculean—to the sight No giant frame sets forth his common height. 1891 Spectator 18 Sept., His labours in the cause of science were herculean. |
b. transf. Of things: Strong, powerful, violent.
| 1602 Marston Antonio's Rev. ii. iii. Wks. 1856 I. 100 Let mine out-woe me: mine's Hurculean woe. 1664 Power Exp. Philos. 135 The first (which is the main and Herculean-Argument). 1747 Wesley Prim. Physic (1762) p. xxv, The four Herculean Medicines, Opium, The Bark, Steel, and most of the Preparations of Quicksilver. Herculean indeed! Far too strong for common Men to grapple with. |
3. Of a labour or task: Difficult or hard to accomplish as Hercules' labours were; requiring the strength of a Hercules; excessive, immense.
| 1617 Moryson Itin. To Rdr. ¶v, The adding of these severall values in each daies journy, had been an Herculean labour. 1732 Berkeley Alciphr. i. §1 Acquiring true knowledge, that Herculean labour. 1875 Scrivener Lect. Text N. Test. 13 An herculean task, to which not one life but many must needs be devoted. |