sleeping giant
3
6.5
- noun
- Informal
:
gigante dormido
- The local community has always been a sleeping giant, full of potential yet to be tapped.
- awaken the sleeping giant
- wake the sleeping giant
- awoke a sleeping giant
The root of countless problems in our society lies in a sleeping giant, unhealed trauma.
- The root of countless problems in our society lies in a sleeping giant, unhealed trauma.
- But when Japan came and bombed Pearl Harbor, it was famously said that they had awoken a sleeping giant.
Examples
-
You have woken the sleeping giant.
-
The talent within the organization is a sleeping giant waiting for the right leadership to emerge.
-
We're gonna wake a sleeping giant.
-
We call it a sleeping giant.
-
We are not the sleeping giant.
Blog text (22) -
This must be the sleeping giant Grandpa told us about.
-
Well, the Mexican-American community... has long been referred to as the sleeping giant.
-
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant."
Blog text (18) -
But we risk antagonizing a sleeping giant if we fail.
-
But Michigan's population is a sleeping giant that will awaken one day.
Blog text (19)
How Powerful
Surface Forms
Morphology
sleeping + giant
The phrase directly combines 'sleeping' (inactive or not currently operating) with 'giant' (a very large or powerful entity), so the sense of something powerful but presently dormant is transparently inferable from the parts. This kind of simple metaphorical composition is common across languages, so an average B1 learner who knows the constituent words should be able to deduce the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Sleeping giant may come from the picture of a huge person, a giant, who is quiet and sleeping but could wake and become very powerful. That's why it means 'a person or thing with great but unused power or ability'.