Τιτάν

Hesiod's Theogony, composed around 700 BCE, names twelve Titans — the children of Ouranos (Sky) and Gaia (Earth) who ruled before Zeus overthrew them. Hesiod himself offered an etymology: from titainein, 'to strain' or 'to stretch,' because they strained in wickedness. Modern linguists doubt this. The word may be pre-Greek, from the same lost substrate language that gave Greek many of its mythological names. The Titans were old, and their name may be older.

The Titanomachy — the ten-year war between the Titans and the Olympians — was one of the foundational narratives of Greek religion. Zeus won. He imprisoned the Titans in Tartarus, below the underworld. But the Titans were not erased. Prometheus, a Titan, gave humanity fire. Atlas, a Titan, held up the sky. Kronos, their leader, ruled over the mythic Golden Age. The losing side contributed more to human civilization than the winners did.

Martin Heinrich Klaproth named the element titanium in 1795, after the Titans, because it was strong and elemental. Saturn's largest moon became Titan in 1847, named by John Herschel. The White Star Line launched the RMS Titanic in 1912 — 882 feet long, 46,328 tons, the biggest moving object humans had built. It hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage and sank in under three hours, killing 1,517 people. The name, meant to invoke invincibility, became a synonym for catastrophic hubris.

Today 'titan' means anyone or anything of enormous scale and power — titans of industry, tech titans. It carries no mythological baggage for most speakers. But the original Titans were overthrown gods, locked in a pit beneath the earth. The word's current meaning (invincible power) is exactly backwards from its mythic meaning (power that was defeated). English kept the size and forgot the fall.