juggernaut

A juggernaut, in current English usage, is a literal or metaphorical force regarded as merciless, destructive, and unstoppable. This English usage originated in the mid-nineteenth century and was the early rendering in English of Jagannath, an important deity in the Hinduism of north-east India. Since the Middle Ages, Europeans had been fascinated by accounts of the Ratha Yatra ("Temple car procession") at Puri, which claimed that pilgrims threw themselves under the temple cars, although by 1825 it was said that "That excess of fanaticism which formerly prompted the pilgrims to court death by throwing themselves in crowds under the wheels of the car of Jaganath, has happily long ceased". Overview The figurative use of the word is analogous to figurative uses of steamroller or battering ram to mean something overwhelming. Its ground in social behavior is similar to that of bandwagon, but with overtones of devotional sacrifice. Its British English meaning of a large heavy truck or articulated lorry dates from the second half of the twentieth century. The word is derived from the Sanskrit/Odia (Devanagari , Odia ) "world-lord", combining ("world") and ("lord"), which is one of the names of Krishna found in the Sanskrit epics.