The building blocks of English

Affixes

titano-1

Gigantic, huge.

Greek Titan, one of the older generation of gods in Greek mythology, who preceded the Olympians and whose size and power was outstandingly great.

Some words refer to fossil species: a titanosaur (Greek sauros, lizard) is one of several gigantic Cretaceous dinosaurs; a titanothere (Greek thērion, wild animal) is a very large extinct horned mammal species related to the rhinoceros. Other examples refer directly to the Greek gods: Titanism is a spirit of revolt against the established order or convention, in reference to the war of the Titans against the Olympian gods, called Titanomachy (Greek ‑makhia, fighting). The usual adjective referring to great size is titanic (but see the next entry for another sense).