mammoth

American  

[mam-uhth] / ˈmæm əθ /

noun

• mammoths
  plural

1. any large, elephantlike mammal of the extinct genus Mammuthus, from the Pleistocene Epoch, having hairy skin and ridged molar teeth.

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adjective

1. immensely large; huge; enormous.

   a mammoth organization.

mammoth British  

/ ˈmæməθ /

noun

1. any large extinct elephant of the Pleistocene genus Mammuthus (or Elephas ), such as M. primigenius ( woolly mammoth ), having a hairy coat and long curved tusks

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adjective

1. of gigantic size or importance

mammoth Scientific  

/ măm′əth /

1. Any of various extinct elephants of the genus Mammuthus, having long, upwardly curving tusks and thick hair. Mammoths grew to great size and lived throughout the Northern Hemisphere during the Ice Age.

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Synonym Usage

See gigantic.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• mammoths
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of mammoth

1690–1700; < Russian mam(m)ot (now mámont ), first used in reference to remains of the animal found in Siberia; origin uncertain

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Compare meaning

How does mammoth compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• mastodon vs. mammoth

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Explanation

The adjective mammoth is a great way to describe something really, really big, like those huge woolly elephants they’re still finding in the melting glaciers. The word mammoth is a pretty new one, dating back only to around 1700. It was first only a noun from the Russian word mammot, meaning “earth,” and used to name the newly-discovered fossilized creature that was thought to have burrowed in the earth like a mole. The word, a rare Russian contribution to English, was not used as an adjective until around 1800 — notably when President Thomas Jefferson used it to describe a very large cheese.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

mammoth mammoths

The Criterion Collection’s mammoth set of the director’s 13 features captures a master of American cinema and his singular stories of men caught up in systems bigger than themselves.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 12, 2026

At an Alaskan research station she inhales the scent of oxidizing permafrost: “Pleistocene-aged grass, mammoth bones, and thousands and thousands of years of microbial cells.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

"It's a mammoth game," said BBC Sport football expert Chris Sutton.

From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026

SpaceX’s half-billion-dollar fee pool is expected to be a mere appetizer as Anthropic and OpenAI prepare to launch their own mammoth IPOs in the coming months.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 31, 2026

First, old Amarante Cordova, wearing his mammoth pistol, limped between ghost houses and down the plaza to the steps of the small mud-plastered church.

From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols

Elephants and mammoths were not common in prehistoric southern England.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 27, 2026

For the next 49,000 years, the sticky pits captured virtually everything that fell or walked onto them, from grains of pollen borne by the wind to hapless ancient camels and Columbian mammoths.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 6, 2026

Sora transfixed the tech world by creating seemingly realistic videos of everything from woolly mammoths trekking across a snowy field to a stylish woman walking down a Tokyo street filled with glowing neon signs.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 30, 2026

They also compared the bone of modern elephants and steppe mammoths to determine which animal it came from.

From BBC ● Feb. 16, 2026

The Arctic lands were full of large, juicy animals such as reindeer and mammoths.

From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari

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Related Words

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