mammoth

[ mam-uhth ]

noun

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

adjective

1. immensely large; huge; enormous:

   a mammoth organization.

mammoth

/ 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

adjective

1. of gigantic size or importance

mammoth

/ 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.

Word History and Origins

Origin of mammoth¹

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of mammoth¹

C18: from Russian mamot, from Tatar mamont, perhaps from mamma earth, because of a belief that the animal made burrows

Synonym Study

See gigantic.

Example Sentences

At the bottom, several trails converged beneath a mammoth sandstone outcropping.

From Washington Post

The Times is a mammoth news organization of roughly 1,700 journalists.

From Washington Post

To be sure, mammoth additions like this have happened before.

From Fortune

That was when she first heard of Wrangel Island, a dot in the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia thought to be the last place on earth where woolly mammoth had survived.

From Ozy

That residue must have been acquired by pounding apart mammoth bones that were found scattered around the stones, the team argues.

From Science News

And then when you want something satisfying, splash out a few dollars for a mammoth cupcake.

From The Daily Beast

An army of Wildlings, some giants, and a woolly mammoth or two?

From The Daily Beast

It was absolutely mammoth—a mammoth task—and one that took an awful lot of preparation.

From The Daily Beast

The fact that a mammoth celebrity felt so threatened by the mere implication of male-on-male intimacy is undeniably interesting.

From The Daily Beast

Rockefeller Republicans have long gone the way of the woolly mammoth.

From The Daily Beast

In its foreground was a mammoth tree, shading the gables of a stone cottage; a ruined wall, half smothered by vines.

From Project Gutenberg

Inspired by a sense of deficiency, the doctor says that the visit to the Mammoth Cave terminated without any further incident.

From Project Gutenberg

Telegraph poles reared only their cross-arms above the mammoth drifts.

From Project Gutenberg

That was the great show: after that, mammoth cucumbers and carrots or rows of agricultural implements did not detain us long.

From Project Gutenberg

It was a well-executed wood-cut, showing a dingue in the foreground and, to give scale, a mammoth in the middle distance.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• colossal
• enormous
• gargantuan
• gigantic
• immense
• large
• massive
• monstrous
• monumental
• prodigious
• vast