the.com/giant squid

means A massive deep-sea cephalopod, often reaching 40+ feet long with eyes the size of dinner plates, that lives in near-total darkness and was long known only from carcasses and legend.

from 'Giant' is plain description, from Old French 'geant,' ultimately Greek 'gigas' — the mythic earth-born giants who warred with the gods. 'Squid' is murkier: it surfaces in English around the 17th century, likely sailors' slang, possibly tied to 'squirt' for the creature's ink-jetting habit, though the exact root is uncertain. The species itself, Architeuthis, was named by naturalists from 19th-century strandings and beached remains — real sailors really did glimpse tentacled monsters, and those sightings almost certainly fed the kraken myths long before science caught up to the legend.