strongman

From strong +‎ -man.

strongman (plural strongmen)

1. A man who performs feats of strength, as in competitions or as an attraction in a circus.
   • 1920, Harry Houdini, chapter 11, in Miracle Mongers and Their Methods‎^[1]:

     Giovanni Battista Belzoni, the famous Egyptian archeologist, who was a man of gigantic stature, began his public career as a strongman at the Bartholomew Fair, under the management of Gyngell, the conjuror, who dubbed him The Young Hercules.

   • 1957, Sydney J. Bounds, The Robot Brains, London: Digit Books, page 26:

     Opposite him was the Fat Lady, red-faced and laughing. Beside her, the India-rubber Man wound spaghetti on to a fork with an expression of deepest melancholy. Further down the table, the Strong Man, an overcoat covering his leopard-skin, talked garrulously.

2. A forceful or brutal person, usually a ruler or tyrant.
   • 2022 January 7, Max Fisher, “Behind Kazakhstan Unrest, the ‘Strongman’s Dilemma’”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:

     Since the Cold War’s end, a staggering 70 percent of governments headed by strongmen collapsed after the ruler departed, according to one data set.

• strongwoman