Cyclopes

(European mythology)

Literally, ‘circle-eyed’. The one-eyed giants of Greek mythology. Hesiod in his Theogony, composed soon after 700 BC, claimed that they gave to Zeus his special weapons, thunder and lightning. In the Odyssey, at least 150 years earlier, Homer had described the Cyclopes as ‘overbearing and lawless’; they were ferocious pastoralists, given to cannibalism. Odysseus came up against their brutish leader Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon, in his cave near Mount Aetna in Sicily. By blinding the one-eyed giant in his drunken sleep with a brand, Odysseus and his surviving men were able to escape, though they earned the undying hatred of the sea god. The two legends jar and the Cyclopes, those strange giants with the single eye set in their foreheads, remain forever mysterious.

Dictionary: Cy·clo·pes  (sī-klō'pēz)

Greek Mythology. Plural of Cyclops.

Cȳclōpēs (sing. Cyclops), in Greek myth, one-eyed giants, according to Homer, dwelling on a distant island. Odysseus visited the cave of one of them, Polyphemus. In Hesiod they were the sons of Uranus (Heaven) and Gaia (Earth), three in number, called Brontēs, Steropēs, and Argēs (‘thunderer’, ‘lightener’, ‘bright’), who made the thunderbolts of Zeus and aided him in his war against the Titans. They often appear as Hephaestus' workmen, and were credited with the construction of ancient walls, such as those of Tiryns and Mycenae. In these cases they have little in common with the Cyclopes of the Odyssey. See also ASCLEPIUS, and CYCLOPS below.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: only the silky anteater
  Synonym: genus Cyclopes