Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various extinct elephants of the genus Mammuthus of the Pliocene, Pleistocene, and Holocene Epochs, having ridged molars and often, as in the woolly mammoth, long tusks and hair.
- noun Something that is of great size.
- adjective Of enormous size, extent, or amount; huge. synonym: enormous.
- adjective Of great scope or importance.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun An extinct species of elephant, Elephas primigenius.
- Of great comparative size, like a mammoth; gigantic; colossal; immense: as, a mammoth ox; the mammoth tree of California (Sequoia gigantea).
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Resembling the mammoth in size; very large; gigantic.
- noun (Zoöl.) An extinct, hairy, maned elephant (
Mammuthus primigenius formerlyElephas primigenius ), of enormous size, remains of which are found in the northern parts of both continents. The last of the race, in Europe, were coeval with prehistoric man.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A large, hairy, extinct
elephant -like mammal of the taxonomicgenus Mammuthus . - noun figuratively Something very large of its kind.
- adjective Very large.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective so exceedingly large or extensive as to suggest a giant or mammoth
- noun any of numerous extinct elephants widely distributed in the Pleistocene; extremely large with hairy coats and long upcurved tusks
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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And suddenly the term mammoth, no longer just referring to an animal, meant anything big.
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We hunted large game; a mammoth is a risky proposition.
Evolutionary psychology explores ancient and newer roots of instinctual fears Arthur Allen 2010
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We hunted large game; a mammoth is a risky proposition.
Evolutionary psychology explores ancient and newer roots of instinctual fears Arthur Allen 2010
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They were his picture books, and he could take one in hand, perhaps a sketch of the great hairy elephant which we call the mammoth, and show it around the circle and then tell the story of that hunt.
The Iron Star — and what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages John Preston True
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The name mammoth, which is probably of Tartar origin, Witsen appears to wish to derive from Behemoth, spoken of in the fortieth chapter of the Book of Job.
The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II Alexander Leslie 1866
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The woolly mammoth is the ideal choice for the “new” republican party.
Unemployment still at 10%. [pause] Yipe. - Moe_Lane’s blog - RedState 2010
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"We have the oldest model that he has in his collection, a woolly mammoth from the '40s, when he was just doing it in a shop in his garage," she says.
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All that stands between the world and a living, breathing wooly mammoth is $10M.
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Link many people assume the hairy mammoth is extinct, but there could be one out behind your garage.
fans jumped up and the Finn jumped too truepenny 2007
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He was the KEWLEST. also: the word mammoth always makes me snicker.
weeme Diary Entry weeme 2005
qroqqa commented on the word mammoth
Also used as a modifier, meaning "very big". As in a sentence I just read in seriously intended copy, referring to a firm as a mammoth boutique. The richness of the Web is illustrated by the fact that several of those randomized spam sites, whatever they are (I have no intention of clicking) contain this very phrase in most curious contexts:
society enrichmentm eeting invitations after applicant of the phony ugly fire succumbing inside me, soothing into the mammoth boutique between my legs.
by roundness up an corridoro with the latest fashions, discontinuation and accessories, all within a mammoth boutique. Read out ringworm genre remedies.
March 9, 2009
rolig commented on the word mammoth
Interestingly, this word came into West European languages via Russian; hence I place it on my list of slavonicisms.
December 23, 2015