English Explanatory Dictionary

mastodon

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. Extinct elephant-like mammal of the genus †Mammut that flourished worldwide from Miocene through Pleistocene times; differs from elephants and mammoths in the form of the molar teeth.
  2. Anything awkwardly large or unwieldy.
name
  1. A decentralized microblogging platform, part of the Fediverse.
noun
  1. A nickname for both the 4-8-0 and (though erroneously) the 4-10-0 train configurations.

Pronunciation

/ˈmæs.tə.dɒn/ /ˈmæs.tə.dɑn/ /ˈmæs.tə.dən/ LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-mastodon.wav /-dən/

Word forms

mastodon mastodons mastodont

Etymology

First attested 1813, from translingual Mastodon (1806), coined by French naturalist Georges Cuvier, from masto- (“breast”) + -odon (“tooth”), due to the mammilloid (“nipple-shaped”) projections on the crowns of the extinct mammal's molars.

Synonyms

incognitum

Related words

amastia glyptodon gynecomastia mastoid mastos orthodontist periodontal toot

Derived words

Mastodon mastodonian mastodonic mastodonlike mastodontid John Mastodon Masto mastocel -stodon
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
Back to search All on M Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary