leviathan
(Hebrew: probably lavah, to bend or twist)
An enormous beast.
The term is found in the Latin Vulgate in Job 3:8, 40:20; Isaiah 27:1.
The same Hebrew term livyathan, is found in Psalms 73:14 and 103:26.
In these two last places the Vulgate renders it draco, a dragon.
Buxtorf gives the first meaning, whale.
The generally accepted meaning is crocodile.
It may have had the indefinite signification of a monster, which at times was applied to the crocodile, and at other times to the whale.
In Psalms 103:26; Job 3:8, 40:20, it surely means the whale, especially in Psalms 103:25-26, where the home of leviathan is "the sea great and wide."
New Catholic Dictionary
