juggernaut

Origin: Borrowed in the 17th century into British English in India, either through جَگَنَّاتھ / जगन्नाथ or directly from , ultimately from (Jagannatha), a title for the Hindu deity Vishnu's avatar Krishna. The sense comes from witnessing the Rath Yatra (chariot parade) at Puri, Odisha, a huge annual procession which features a wagon of the idol of Jagannath; pulled with ropes by hundreds of devotees, the wagon develops considerable momentum and becomes unstoppable. The r was not originally pronounced: for non-rhotic dialects of British English, the spelling with -er- accurately suggests the Hindi p. Origin information sourced from Wiktionary contributors (CC BY-SA 4.0).