Word.ws English Dictionary

cyclopean

/ˈsaɪkləʊpi.ən/

cyclopean adjective: suggestive of a cyclops.

Adjective (1)

cyclopean (comparative more cyclopean, superlative most cyclopean)

  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...
  2. Fitted together of huge irregular stones.
  3. (broadly) Massive in stature.
    • 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.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
  4. 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

Adjective (2) capitalized: Cyclopean

Cyclopean (comparative more Cyclopean, superlative most Cyclopean)

  1. Alternative letter-case form of cyclopean.
    • Our quiuering Lances ſhaking in the aire,
      And bullets like Ioues dreadfull Thunderbolts,
      Enrolde in flames and fiery ſmoldering miſtes,
      Shall threat the Gods more than Cyclopian warres, […]c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...

Forms of cyclopean

comparativemore cyclopean
superlativemost cyclopean
alternative formCyclopean
alternative formcyclopian
comparativemore Cyclopean
superlativemost Cyclopean

Origin of cyclopean

From cyclops + -ean.

Words formed from cyclopean

Questions about cyclopean

What does cyclopean mean?
Cyclopean means suggestive of a cyclops.
What part of speech is cyclopean?
Cyclopean is an adjective.
How do you pronounce cyclopean?
Cyclopean is pronounced /ˈsaɪkləʊpi.ən/ (UK).

Words near cyclopean in the dictionary

  1. cycloparaffin
  2. cycloparaffinic
  3. cycloparaffins
  4. cycloparaphenylene
  5. cycloparaphenylenes
  6. cyclopean
  7. Cyclopean architecture
  8. cyclopean stairs
  9. cyclopedia
  10. cyclopedias
  11. cyclopedic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cyclopean (page history and authors); Cyclopean (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-cyclopean.wav.

Cite this entry: “cyclopean.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cyclopean. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.