Someone who performs feats of strength, sometimes in competitions or 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.
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.
Swedish: starke manc(literally "strong man" and idiomatically always in the definite, as for example "<place>s starke man" (the strongman of <place>) or "deras starke man" (their strongman))