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mastodon

Pronunciation: /ˈmæs.tə.dɒn/

The English word “mastodon” has 2 meanings listed here.

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.

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.

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