mastodon

Definition

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.

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.

Example Sentences

• "When, exactly, Europeans first stumbled upon the bones of an American mastodon is unclear. An isolated molar unearthed in a field in upstate New York was sent off to London in 1705; it was labeled the “tooth of a Giant”."
• "The battery is dying, and Natalia's iPhone charger doesn't fit my mastodon of a phone anyway."
• "Nor does it work for governance: the policy has become such a mastodon that we can't adapt it quickly enough to different regions or different circumstances."

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