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

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

Compare meaning

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

• mastodon vs. mammoth

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 row centres over a mammoth exercise to update electoral rolls nationwide - the commission has said it's a routine exercise to weed out dead, duplicate or ineligible voters.

From BBC ● Oct. 11, 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

With Thursday’s sign-off by the California Public Utilities Commission, the mammoth merger is expected to close next week.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2026

Sunrisers have boasted one of the most powerful top orders in the tournament but struggled under the pressure of a mammoth run chase and they finished 166-7.

From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026

Whatever, after a hundred ravens had boiled noisily off, one mammoth black beast remained, flapping around hysterically in the smoke.

From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols

According to UK Fossils, Suffolk is "well known" for its fossils from the Pleistocene era - also known as the Great Ice Age - including those belonging to mammoths.

From BBC ● Apr. 10, 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

Fossil evidence also revealed that these warm-adapted hippos lived alongside cold-climate animals such as mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses -- an unusual ecological mix that highlights the complexity of Ice Age environments.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 26, 2025

It peers across the street at the bubbling La Brea Tar Pits with their fiber-glass mammoths and saber-tooth cats.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 24, 2025

“That may be, Your Grace,” Jon said, “but the mammoths are too big to pass through our gate.”

From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin

Related Words

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