strongman

strong +‎ -man

strongman (plural strongmen)

1. Someone who performs feats of strength, sometimes in competitions or in a circus.
   • 1920, Harry Houdini, chapter 11, in Miracle Mongers and Their Methods‎:

     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.

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, ISSN 0362-4331:

     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