Titanic has its origin in the Greek titanikos ("of the Titans"). The mythological Titans were giants who lost control of the world to Zeus after a great battle. The earliest use of titanic in English was simply to mean "of, relating to, or held to have characteristics of Titans of ancient Greek mythology." The sense meaning "having great magnitude, force, or power" entered English in the early 1700s.

The ship Titanic was a British luxury passenger liner that sank on April 15, 1912, en route to New York from Southampton, England, on its maiden voyage. Over 1,500 of its 2,200 passengers were lost. The largest and most luxurious ship afloat, it had a double-bottomed hull divided into 16 watertight compartments. Because four of these could be flooded without endangering its buoyancy, it was considered unsinkable.

Shortly before midnight on April 14, it collided with an iceberg southeast of Cape Race, Newfoundland; five compartments ruptured and the ship sank. As a result, new rules were drawn up requiring that the number of places in lifeboats equal the number of passengers (the Titanic had only 1,178 lifeboat places for 2,224 passengers) and that all ships maintain a 24-hour radio watch for distress signals (a ship less than 20 miles away had not heard the Titanic's distress signal because no one had been on duty). The International Ice Patrol was established to monitor icebergs in shipping lanes. In 1985 the wreck was found lying upright in two pieces at a depth of 13,000 ft (4,000 m) and was explored by American and French scientists using an unmanned submersible.